The inferior or wearing margin of the isolated wall must now be so trimmed that it takes no bearing on the ground when the opposite limb is held up by an assistant and full weight placed upon the foot.
For a day or two after the operation lameness is intense. This is to be treated with hot poultices or hot baths, and and soon disappears. Three to four days later a bar shoe is nailed on (taking care that the bearing of the quarters is still eased), and the hot poultices still continued. Four days later still walking exercise may be commenced, to be followed shortly afterwards by trotting. At about the twelfth day some animals may conveniently be put to work, while in other cases a fortnight, or even a month, must elapse before this can be done. When put to work early, it is wise to fill in the fissures made in the wall with hard soap, with wax, or with a suitable hoof dressing, in order that irritation of the sensitive structures with outside matter may be prevented.
This operation is soon followed by remarkable changes in the shape of the foot. At about the third week the coronet shows signs of bulging, and the upper part of the wall operated on is often so protruding as to render the foot wider here than at the ground surface. This is a sign that the case is doing well.
Should no improvement be noticed at the end of three weeks or a month, or should the grooves become filled from the bottom (which they do remarkably fast), then the incisions must be deepened, the exercise reduced, and the fomentations or poulticing repeated. So treated, many cases of side-bone lameness will be relieved, if not entirely cured, and, should the worst happen, and no alteration in the lameness is noticeable, no harm will have been done to the foot. In this connection, the originator of the treatment says: 'I may assure those induced to doubt either their diagnosis or the value of hoof section that no harm is done to the foot, even should the operation be of no value. It may do much good; it cannot do harm. The operation will never succeed until the inherent timidity of sawing or cutting into the wall is overcome. The incisions must be deep, and of the same depth from the coronet to the ground.'[A]
[Footnote A: Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics, vol. iii., p. 313.]
It is well to remark here that the operation of hoof section cannot be expected to succeed in every case. The last man in the world to claim that for it would be its originator. Failure to relieve the lameness may be accounted for in a variety of ways. First, of course, will come errors in diagnosis. No one of us is infallible, and the lameness we have judged as resulting from side-bone may arise from another cause. There are, too, complications to be reckoned with, the existence or absence of which cannot always be definitely ascertained. Such are: Ringbone, especially that form of ringbone known as 'low'; bony deposits on the pedal bone, either on its laminal or plantar surface, or even changes in the navicular bursa.
CHAPTER XI
[DISEASES OF THE BONES]
A. PERIOSTITIS AND OSTITIS.
We head this section, Periostitis and Ostitis, for the reason that in actual practice it is rare for one of these affections to occur without the other. The periosteum and the bone are so intimately connected that it is difficult to conceive of disease of the one failing to communicate itself in some degree to the other. Pathologically, however, and for purposes of description, it is more convenient to describe separately the abnormal changes occurring in these two tissues.