Treatment should be commenced by carefully thinning the sole around the wound and applying moist antiseptic dressings or cold affusions. Removal of loose portions of horn hastens repair by allowing discharge, which has accumulated between the living tissues and the horn itself, to escape freely. The extirpation of necrotic tissue and the application of surgical dressings are only called for in specially grave cases.
This treatment usually gives good results. The acute complications which are so common and so dangerous in the horse seldom occur in the ox.
Most of these operations can be performed without casting, provided the animal is placed in a trevis or is sufficiently secured.
LAMINITIS.
Laminitis is characterised by congestion, followed by inflammation of the horn-secreting tissues of the foot. It is now rare in oxen and very seldom assumes an acute form. The slow pace at which animals of the bovine species move may sufficiently explain this rarity; nevertheless, prolonged travel on stony roads with heavy vehicles, rapid and repeated marches to towns or important fairs, are sufficient to produce attacks. Before the days of railways, and for some time after their introduction, in Britain cattle were travelled by road, and laminitis was common.
Long journeys in crowded railway trucks may also produce the disease, although the animal has not been forced to walk. Persons engaged in exhibiting cattle at shows are well aware of this. Prolonged maintenance of the standing position will produce the trouble, to which the joltings of the railway journey may also contribute their share. Prolonged standing on board ship may induce laminitis.
“Show condition” and the consumption of highly nitrogenous, and particularly of farinaceous, foods favour the occurrence of laminitis.
Breed is also considered to have some influence, and laminitis is said to occur more frequently in animals raised in flat districts, because in their case the space between the digits is larger than in mountain-bred cattle. In this connection the body weight may perhaps play a certain part.
The symptoms vary somewhat, depending on whether laminitis is general and affects all four feet, or restricted to the two front or the two hind feet.
The internal claws always seem more severely affected and more sensitive than the external. In very rare cases the animal remains standing, but usually it lies down, and will only rise under strong compulsion.