132 NAVICULARTHRITIS. 



or reference to disease, once mentioned. I remember that the Pro- 

 fessor attributed foot-lamenesses in general either to disease of the 

 sensitive laminae or to contraction of the hoof; and in my notes of 

 his Lectures I find this memorable passage : — " In nine cases out 

 of ten of what are termed ' groggy' or ' foundered' horses, these parts 

 (the sensitive laminae), in consequence of chronic inflammation, 

 have become altered in structure, effusion of lymph or of bony 

 matter taking place." 



Among the heap of old works on farriery we look in vain for 

 any distinct or satisfactory account of navicularthritis ; though it 

 would appear allusion is made to disease of the navicular joint un- 

 der the denomination of " sprain of the coffin joint" or " os calcis,'' 

 or " heel-bone," the names by which the navicular bone in those 

 days went. The work of the earliest date wherein we find such 

 allusion is that of Jeremiah Bridges, intituled " No Foot, No 

 Horse," and published in 1752*. He speaks of " A Sprain of the 

 Coffin Joint," and directs, by way of treatment for it, drawing 

 blood — in the manner we do now — from the foot, and passing a 

 seton through " the hollow of the frog to the pit or hollow of the 

 heel, under the foot- lock joint;" with care " to avoid touching the 

 capsule of the tendo palmaris'' (tendo perforans); and in some 

 cases " drawing the soal;" also, blistering " three or four inches 

 above the hoof;" and, as the " last attempt" — " the actual cautery or 

 giving the fire" — beginning the strokes " two inches above the coro_ 

 net." Concluding with the observation, that, '' where one horse 

 happens to be really lame in the coffin joint, it is mistaken a hun- 

 dred times in practice." 



That Moorcroft — as well, no doubt, as Field, senior, with whom 

 he was associated in business, in Oxford-street — knew of the dis- 

 ease, we have his own evidence to shew. In a letter to Captain 

 (now Sir Edward) Codrington, in 1804t, respecting a horse thought, 

 in his own judgment, to be lame from " contraction," Moorcroft 

 expresses his doubts that it is not " a complicated case" of lame- 



* No Foot no Horse : an Essay on the Anatomy of the Foot of that 

 Noble and Useful Animal a Horse, &c. By Jeremiah Bridges, Farrier and 

 Anatomist. Baldwin, Paternoster-row, London, 1752. 8vo, pp. 151. 



I Published in vol. xix of The Veterinarian, p. 449. 



