_Examination._—Press with the hoof-testers upon the sole and clinches; tap lightly upon the clinches. If these acts cause pain, there can be little doubt that the nail is responsible for the damage. Remove the shoe by drawing each nail separately and carefully. Examine the nails with reference to their direction and size, as well as to staining with blood, blood-serum, or pus. Immediately after removing the shoe, look for the point of entrance of each nail into the hoof, and if a nail-hole be found upon the edge of the sole (Fig. 187, _b_) instead of in the white line, it is highly probable that the nail which passed in at that place pressed upon the sensitive tissues of the foot. Every nail-hole should then be searched by passing a clean new nail into it and pressing its point towards the soft tissues at various depths; any indication of pain caused by this act is pretty sure proof of nailing. It stands to reason that the character of the nail-holes in the shoe should be closely examined. [Illustration: FIG. 186. Cross-section of a shod hoof, the hoof-skin or pododerm being in red: _a_, indirect nailing where backsetting has been overdone and has bent the nail; _b_, nail properly placed and of correct shape.] [Illustration: FIG. 187. Front hoof deficient in horn: _a_, right position of the nail-holes in the white line; _b_, faulty position inside of the white line; _c_, wall weakened by excessive rasping.] _Treatment._—When the foot has sustained an ordinary simple prick with a nail, the latter should be left out and the hole well filled with wax. As a rule, no serious results follow. In severe direct nailing the entire shoeing should be most carefully examined, and only after everything is found to be right, and the shoe fits in such a manner that the nails can only penetrate the wall from the white line, can it be regarded as correct. The offending nail-hole is then to be closed with wax. According to the intensity of the wound we may expect a more or less pronounced inflammation of the pododerm, and this is to be combated by resting the animal and cooling the foot. If the wound is clean and recent, enlarging the opening in the horn by cutting and boring can have no reasonable object; the wound by such an act will not be made smaller, but larger.