cast the animal.
The sole is then thinned at the toe with the drawing-knife until the
sensitive structures are reached. A flow of yellow and sometimes
blood-stained discharge is immediately obtained, and the sole itself found
to be underrun to a considerable extent. An opening sufficiently large to
admit of free drainage (about the size of a half a crown-piece) is made,
the wounds antiseptically dressed, and the hobbles removed.

If showing an inclination to do so, the animal should then be allowed
to remain and rest. In one instance in which we so operated (a case of
laminitis in the hind-feet alone), the relief given was at once manifested.
For three days previously the animal had remained standing in agonizing
pain. On the fourth he was cast, and the discharge--partly inflammatory
exudate, and partly a sanious foetid pus--liberated. The hobbles were
removed, and the animal allowed to remain down while our attention was
drawn to another case. This attended to, we walked back to the field
where, our first patient was lying. His breathing, but a short time before
distressedly short and catching, was now so slow and deeply regular that
for one brief moment the thought flashed across our mind that he was dead.
He was in a _profound_ sleep.

Other operators sometimes give the exudate escape while making the grooves
in what is now known as 'Smith's Operation.'

In this operation the hoof is so grooved as to allow of its expansion, so
relieving the pressure on the sensitive structures within it. Incidentally,
the inflammatory exudate is given exit.

[Illustration: FIG. 120.--DIAGRAM OF HOOF SHOWING THE POSITION OF THE THREE
GROOVES MADE IN THE TREATMENT OF LAMINITIS.]

The animal is cast, the shoes removed, and three vertical grooves made
in the wall. The first is cut down the centre of toe, extending from the
coronet to the ground surface. The second is made to the right of this, and
the third to the left, each following the direction of the horn fibres, and
each distant about 2 inches from the first (see 1, 2, and 3, Fig. 120).

Each of the grooves must run completely from the coronary margin to the
ground surface, and each should be carried through the substance of the
horn until the horny laminae are reached. This done, the underneath surface
of the foot is grooved at the white line (see curved groove 4, Fig. 121)
in such a manner as to entirely isolate the two pieces of horn _a_ and _b_
from the remainder of the ho