The management and treatment of the horse in the stable, field, and ...

In the Stable, Field, and on the Road. 89
course of physic before using it. Many gentlemen
turn their hunters out of condition through the
summer months with the idea of resting their legs.
This is a mistake for which the animal has to pay in
the autumn by extra work to get it into condition again,
and grooms are often put to their wits' end by the
animals becoming affected with lameness in the
foot as soon as they are put to work; whereas,
had they been kept up during the summer
months and gently exercised, their legs would
have been quite fresh and their feet in good
condition ; less work would have to be given to
get them into hunting condition, and the owner
would have sounder horses with which to commence the
season, and laminitis would be known only as an ugly
name. Of the former character or type of this disease
many cases have come under my observation, in some of
which the animals had not been out of their stables for
weeks or months, and others had had only their regular
work, yet all were attacked, with symptoms equally
violent, with the most virulent cases that have ever
come under my experience. This is one of the many
evidences of the justice of my distinction of natural
from unnatural or artificial phases of laminitis, and
which cannot be accounted for by the general and
popularly received theory that this disease is the offspring
of violence and over-work. Surely, then, my
theory is not ill-founded; there must be some occult
or mysterious cause for this disease presenting itselt
under the peculiar circumstances I have now related.
What, I have frequently asked myself, is this hidden