Foul in the Foot.

This name is given to a disease in cattle, which presents a resemblance to foot rot in sheep, but is different from this. It appears to be always occasioned by the neglect and aggravation of wounds and ulcers originating in mechanical injury—particularly in the insinuating of pieces of stone, splinters of wood, etc., between the claws of the hoof, or in the wearing, splitting, or bruising of the horn, and consequent abrasion of the sensible foot; by walking for an undue length of time, or a long distance upon gravelly or flinty roads, or other hard and eroding surfaces. It is sometimes ascribed, indeed, to a wet state of the pasture; but moisture merely predisposes to it, by softening the hoof and diminishing its power of resisting mechanical injury.

The ulcers of foul in the foot usually occur about the coronet and extend under the hoof, causing much inflammatory action, very great pain, and more or less separation of the hoof; but they often originate in uneven pressure upon the sole, and rise upward from a crack between the claws, and are principally or wholly confined to one side or claw of the foot. A fetid purulent discharge proceeds from the ulcers, and a sinus may sometimes be discovered by means of a probe to descend from the coronet beneath the hoof. The affected animal is excessively lame, and may possibly suffer such a degree of pain as to lose all appetite and become sickly and emaciated.

If the disease is of a mild form, or be merely in the initiatory stage, it may be readily cured by cleaning, fomentation, and rest; if it be of a medium character, between mild and violent, it may be cured by cleaning, by carefully paring away loose and detached horn, by destroying any fungus growth, and by applying, with a feather, a little butyr of antimony; and if it be of a very bad form, or has been long neglected, it will require to be probed, lanced, or otherwise dealt with according to the rules of good surgery, and afterwards poulticed twice a day with linseed meal, and frequently, but lightly, touched with butyr of antimony.