r four days, the animal maintains a vigorous appetite, if he
commences to place a little weight on the foot, and if the thermometer
gives no indication of a rise beyond the one or two degrees of ordinary
surgical fever, then the surgeon may know that things are proceeding
satisfactorily. Pawing movements with the foot, inability to place weight
upon it, loss of appetite, an increase in the number of respirations, and
a serious rise of temperature, denote the opposite state of affairs. The
wound is in all probability suppurating. The bandages and dressings should
therefore be removed, and the wound either redressed and bandaged, or
treated as an ordinary open wound.

Ordinarily, however, if the operation has been properly performed, healing
takes place by first intention, and the wound when the bandages are removed
at the end of the first or second week appears clean and _dry_.

Having assured ourselves that such is the case, we dress the foot in
exactly the same manner as before, save that so many bandages are not put
on. A similar dressing is repeated weekly until such time as the wound
shows sufficient growth of horn--quite a thin pellicle--to act as a
protective. It may then be left undressed, except for some simple hoof
dressing and a bandage.

Complete healing of the wound takes from about four to eight weeks, at the
end of which time the animal can be again gradually put into work. The
labour, however, should be light, and quite three or four months should be
allowed to elapse before any attempt is made to put him to heavy work.

Should the second method of operating have been the one adopted, then there
is one slight difference in the after-dressing that needs attention calling
to it. In this case we have more or less of a _hidden_ cavity left to deal
with rather than the broad and _open_ wound left in either of the other
methods. This cavity, left by the extirpation of the cartilage, must be
thoroughly dressed with iodoform or chinosol, or with Bayer's iodoform
in ether. The packing with carbolized tow and the bandaging may then be
proceeded with as before.

In conclusion, we may say that the operation is one of some delicacy, and
needs a good surgeon for its successful performance. Furthermore, no one of
the antiseptic precautions we have advised can be omitted. It is, perhaps,
these two considerations (and in justice to the English surgeon we should
say most probably the latter of them) that have prevented