During his after-treatment, Bermbach advocates removal of the dressings every second day, all cheesy material to be scraped away with the knife, and the sublimate lotion to be used again.  He also insists on the animal being kept standing in a dry stable,—­nothing but a stone pavement kept clean—­and put to regular work in a plate shoe after the first or second week.  Cure of advanced cases is said to be obtainable in from four to six weeks.

As illustrative of the value of pressure in the treatment of canker, we may also draw attention to a treatment advocated by Lieutenant Rose.[A] This observer holds that adequate pressure is unobtainable by packing the foot, and, to obtain it, removes the wall from heel to heel, much after the manner of preparing the foot for the Charlier shoe, so that the whole of the weight is taken by the sole and the frog.  Tar and tow is then lightly applied, the foot placed in a boot, and the patient turned into a loose-box.  The dressing is repeated at intervals of four or five days until the animal is cured.

[Footnote A:  Veterinary Record, vol. xi., p. 435.]

Those who have followed this method of treatment have modified it by actually shoeing the animal Charlier fashion, and keeping him at work, attention, of course, being at the same time given to a proper antiseptic dressing.

Reported Cases.—­1. (Malcolm’s Treatment[A]).  The subject was a five-year old horse belonging to a client of Mr. Giver’s, of Tamworth.  The case was an exceptionally bad one, for not only was the whole of the frog and sole of the near hind-foot cankered, but the disease on the outside quarter extended to within 1/2 inch of the coronet, and on the inside quarter to within 2 inches of it.  As the owner, a farmer, had not proper convenience for Mr. Olver to treat the case, the latter asked me, while visiting him, if I would care to undertake the treatment, saying at the time it would be a very good test-case, as the disease was so far advanced.  I readily agreed, and, after the necessary arrangements, had the horse removed to Birmingham on July 2.  In this case it was found necessary to cast the animal and cauterize the foot a second time before a healthy granulating surface was secured; but after this the progress towards recovery was uninterrupted, although necessarily slow, on account of the large amount of new secreting surface which had to be formed.

[Footnote A:  Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics, vol. v., p. 48.]

The horse was finally discharged, after inspection by Mr. Olver, absolutely cured and free from canker, on January 7.

The illustration (Fig. 135, p. 312) is from a photograph, and it gives a somewhat imperfect representation of the state of the foot two months after it came under my care.

2. (Rose’s Treatment.[A]) This was a bad case of canker, which had been for two or three months treated in the ordinary manner, with but little sign of ultimate success.  Commenced in June and carried on until the end of September, the ordinary treatment consisted in burning down the fungus growth with the hot iron, and dressing with copper sulphate, zinc sulphate, and boracic acid.  The cauterization was repeated every five days.