AS TO SOUNDNESS. 



practised eye, and by this only with care and attention. 

 Frequently we find a horse with this disease coming out of 

 his stable stiff and crambly, and after he has gone awhile 

 he will go sound. If you suspect him to have groggy 

 lameness of an obscure nature, do as the late Professor 

 Dick used to do. He would have the horse stabled and 

 have him brought out at intervals throughout a whole 

 day. This of course was when he had either seen 

 symptoms of lameness or thought he had. Prolonged 

 rest in a loose box has sometimes a wonderful remedial 

 effect in the more chronic forms. When this is so, I 

 suspect the disease is in one of two conditions : it is 

 either at the very beginning of the disease, before patho- 

 logical changes have far advanced; or there are adhesions, 

 or a state suitable for adhesions, between the ulcerated 

 navicular bone and the ulcerated flexon tendon, the rest 

 allowing these adhesions to organise and attain resisting 

 power. Of course this is a mere guess, but you can take 

 it for what it is worth. But what I wish to impress upon 

 you is that you may have to all appearance a sound 

 horse who all the time has navicular disease, and you 

 are therefore to take means for discovering it. Have 

 the horse warmed with exercise and taken straight into a 

 stable, and let him stand wrong end first in his stall 

 secured by pillar reins, and leave the stable door open. 

 You can watch him and see if he " points," then in half 

 an hour or so have him quietly led out of the stable and 

 notice his shoulders and pasterns. If he has any navicular 

 disease at all, no matter whether he has been cured by 



