From the only data we are able to work on, it appears that this dressing should be repeated daily, the bandage being removed, each time, the foot well bathed in warm water, and the dressing and bandage afterwards replaced.  On first sight, it would appear that once cleansed and bandaged the dressings might be left in situ for several days.  Seeing, however, that suppuration, if once set up, would add further to the intense pain the animal is already suffering, and considering the always constant exposure of the foot to infection, it is perhaps wise to persist in daily changing of the dressings.

At the same time, the general health of the animal should be attended to.  Suitable febrifuges should be administered, either in the shape of a dose of physic, or salines and liq. ammonia. acetatis; and the pain, if appearing unbearable, allayed by doses of choral and hypodermic injections of morphia.

Recorded Cases.—­1.  ’A short time ago I was called to see a horse which had had his hoof torn off in a railway “point.”  When I arrived at the stable the injury had been done two hours, and the horse had been led from the railway to a loose-box nearly half-a-mile off.  On going to this box I was surprised and horrified to find the poor animal mad with pain, rolling and dashing himself about.  When on his back he would struggle and kick the walls with the injured foot, as though unconscious of pain.  Not one moment was he still, and as I could see that the sensitive structures were much damaged by his violence, I obtained a gun and put him out of his pain.

’The accident happened in this way.  The horse was employed in shunting coal-waggons, and had just drawn four loaded trucks up to a point at which they diverged to the left, and the horse, being unhooked, ought to have turned to the right.  Here, unfortunately, the near fore-foot became wedged in between two converging railway plates, one of which formed a part of the waggon-way, on which the trucks were running.  The horse was a big animal, and freshly shod with heavy shoes, on which a toe-piece and calkins were used.  The shoe was roughly but strongly nailed on with eight nails, the clinches of which were all firm.  This shoe was fitted wide at the heels, and when the foot was fixed in the points (toe downwards) it protruded over the face of the rail.  When the trucks reached it they pressed it down, and, the horse leaning forward, the hoof was drawn off like a glove.  The hoof was almost as clean inside as if taken off by maceration—­only towards the toe was a small portion of the coffin-bone and some torn laminae left inside the hoof.

’As soon as possible after the accident, so I was told, the foot was bound up with tow and a bandage; then a sack was cut up and placed over all, and the horse slowly led to his loose-box.  He “carried” the leg all the way, limping along on the three sound ones.  Almost immediately after reaching the box he lay down, but only for a short time.  The standing position was not long maintained—­profuse perspiration set in, and the alternations of position became more rapid and violent, till plunging and rolling were added to the other signs of excruciating pain.  I was also told that the groaning of the poor animal was almost constant, and at times so loud and prolonged as to amount to a shriek.