s able to overcome any influence operating towards contraction. It
may be, however, that given a cause for contraction, such as the removal of
the frog's counter-pressure with the ground by faulty shoeing or excessive
paring, the fore-feet, by reason of their being called upon to bear the
greater part of the body-weight, are the first to suffer.

Flat feet with weak heels are those most frequently affected, and, as we
have already intimated, the condition may exist with or without other
disease of the foot.

Depending upon its degree, contracted foot may vary from a simple
abnormality, non-inflammatory and painless, to a condition in which it
becomes a veritable disease, giving rise to a bad form of lameness, and
bringing about a withered and sometimes discharging and cankerous affection
of the frog.

_Symptoms_.--In its early stages contraction is difficult of detection, and
where both feet are affected may for some time go unsuspected. With only
one foot undergoing change, the early stages may the more readily be
marked, for in this case comparison with the other and sound foot will at
once reveal the alteration in shape. If lameness in the suspected foot is
present, then any lingering doubt will be quickly dispelled.

When far advanced, contraction offers signs that cannot well be missed. The
converging of the heels narrows the V-shaped indentation in the sole for
the reception of the frog. As a consequence of this, the frog itself
becomes atrophied by reason of the _continual_ pressure exerted upon it by
the ingrowing horn of the wall and the bars. The median and lateral lacunae
of this organ, from being fairly broad and open channels, become pressed
into mere crack-like openings (see the commencing of this condition in Fig.
80, and a badly wasted frog in Fig. 74A). As the case goes on, the lateral
branches of the frog entirely disappear, and all that is left of the organ
is a remnant of its body or cushion, now wedged in tightly between the
bars. Following upon the disappearance of the frog, we find that the bars
are in contact, or, in some cases, actually overlapping each other at their
posterior extremities.

At this stage, perhaps, the whole condition has become aggravated by a foul
discharge from the place originally occupied by the frog, and the foot,
especially in the region of the heels, has become hot and tender--really a
form of local and subacute laminitis.

The long-continued inflammation, although