ater is at hand, then the animal may be kept standing therein, or
preferably walked about in it. When suitable apparatus is obtainable, a
constant stream over each foot from a rubber hosepipe is most beneficial.

Astringent baths, containing solutions of alum, of copper sulphate, of iron
sulphate, or of common salt, or composed of a mixture of two or more of the
salts mentioned, may also be used with advantage. In addition to the fact
that such solutions are for a time below the temperature of simple water,
we have the advantage that they have also a more or less antiseptic
property.

While on the subject of the relief of the congestion, we must not forget
to mention a treatment which we ourselves have practised with considerable
success--namely, that of forced exercise. It appears to have been first
brought into prominence by Mr. Broad, of Bath, and the two terms 'Forced
Exercise and Rocker Shoes' and 'Broad's Treatment' have come to be
synonymous.

The Broad shoe is a shoe with a web of quite twice the thickness of the
animal's ordinary shoe, and has this web gradually thinned from the toe
backwards until at the heels the shoe is at its thinnest (see Fig. 119).

The excessive thickness of the shoe serves two purposes. It allows of the
requisite amount of slope being given to the web, and so enables the animal
readily to throw himself back on to his heels, a position in which, as we
have already indicated, he obtains the greatest ease. It also minimizes to
some extent the effects of concussion.

[Illustration: FIG. 119.--SEATED ROCKER BAR SHOE (BROAD'S) FOR TREATMENT OF
LAMINITIS.]

With forced exercise, as practised by Mr. Broad, this shoe is first
applied, and the animal afterwards made to walk upon soft ground, or even
upon the roadway, for a half an hour to an hour and a half three times a
day.

For our own part, we consider the shoe to be almost if not quite
superfluous, so far as its influence upon the progress of the disease is
concerned. We therefore dispense with it, and have the animal exercised in
his ordinary shoes. To do this, the patient has sometimes to be severely
flogged into taking the first few steps. After that progress gradually
becomes easier.

It has been said to be cruel. In so far as we knowingly, and of set
purpose, occasion the animal pain, cruel it undoubtedly is; but it is
cruelty with an aim that is truly benevolent, and the object of our
benevolence is the animal upon whom the cr