Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Ring-bones or ossified cartilages / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
![2 circle or ring of the coronet, hence the name of Ring-bone has followed as a natural consequence. Now the structure and offices of these remarkable parts having been particularly alluded to in our anatomy of this organ, it need not here be further dwelt upon. And it only remains for us to consider their relief, for their total extirpation and cure seems out of the question; still much may be done by a proper knowledge of them in the way of their prevention, and which may be achieved, in part or wholly, by our not embracing the foot too early and too perma- nently with a fixed inflexible shoe, that is to the Nag-horses; and as to the cart-horses, a re- ducing perhaps in some cases the inordinate strength and thickness of this monster of a hoof, might be of use in defeating their formation, and not resorting too early to the iron bond. Further, for their relief, for they are very common, and a very great annoyance to the generous animal, wholly incapacitating him at times from service, we should recommend a light blister, or two, to the coronet generally, and in very desperate cases, perhaps a slight firing may be resorted to, or in lighter cases emollient fomentations of herbs, and with these a bleeding or two from the jugular and from the coronary veins, and other vessels of the foot, with rest and a soft bed, and a dose of purging medicine: these anti-inflammatory means will most generally subdue the present inflammation, soreness, and pain; for we have found when they occasion sudden lameness, and are most troublesome, it is from some sudden twist or wrench of the foot in their work, that has called up the inflammation of the parts, by the resist- ance the ossified portion of the cartilage makes, and which will most often yield to such measures. And we think we have observed these ossifications to be more frequent on the outside, than inside of the foot. And we also think we have seen great relief given by deeply scoring with a drawing-knife longitudinally, the hoof itself, in three or four places, by which it is rendered less binding upon the parts within, and together with the expansion shoe to aid it, it has produced the most agreeable and beneficial effects, and this in an old horse, who after these measures soon returned to his work again. And so little has the elasticity of the foot been known or understood, that I apprehend this is the first time this simple means has been proposed. See Testimonies, p. 12, in favour of the expansion shoe in these cases. This disease has also been strangely called, chest-founder by the smiths, merely apparently from its often causing a considerable retraction of the muscles of the chest, from the severe pains of the feet. After what has been said as to the causes of this complaint, and of the inherent property of elasticity in these and all other feet, no man will, without well considering it, put the foot in irons, in the young growing animal, but on some very pressing emergency, and then only to remove it again on the first opportunity. RICHARDS, rBIXTKU, ] 00, ST MARTIN'S USE.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2200564x_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
