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

In the Stable, Field, and on the Road. 95
experience the best sedative, and stands pre-eminent as
a diuretic. Nitrate of potass, given repeatedly in water,
possesses the property of destroying or neutralising
certain morbid poisons existing in the blood, as well as
in a less marked manner of checking inflammation,
which result is attributed, at least in part, to its well-
known property of rendering the fibrine of the blood
more soluble. In laminitis cold water should be
poured with great force upon the feet, as they are hot
and dry ; it reduces the temperature, lowers the cir-
culation and soothes the nervous system, diminishes the
extreme sensibility, and restores the contractility of
the capillary vessels, thereby preventing any further
effusion, and allowing the absorbent vessels to remove
any fluid that may have been thrown out. In this
disease the functions of the stomach and digestive
organs are either primary or sympathetically impaired,
and the assimilation of nutriment consequently very
feeble ; it becomes a necessity to supply such con-
centrated forms of nutriment as will be most certain
and readily absorbed by the digestive organs. I have
often given two or three eggs in half a pint of cold
water every two hours night and day, until the fever
abates, then give mash, raw swede, mangold, carrot
if in summer green food in small quantities, and
change its food often. Horses once having laminitis
are always liable to a relapse upon any extra exertion.
"No foot, no horse "is a proverb staunch and true;
yet when we look to the numerous complaints and
diseases of the foot that the horse is subject to, and all
the evils that arise from the ignorance and prejudice