NAVICULARTHRITIS. 139 



gate ;" adding, " I believe I am correct in stating, that before 

 the year 1816, the (St. Pancras) College Museum, splendid as it 

 then was, contained but a solitary specimen of the navicular dis- 

 ease, and which was simply a diseased navicular bone, divested 

 of its ligaments and tendon ; but Mr. Coleman has on several 

 occasions since candidly acknowledged, in his lectures, that he 

 had looked upon it previously to that time as a specimen of dis- 

 ease of very rare occurrence." 



Thus is the account concluded of the histor}^ of navicularthritis 

 so far as regards our own country. With this, however, the 

 inquiring veterinarian will hardly feel satisfied : he will naturally 

 desire to be informed what has or had been brought to light 

 respecting the disease in other countries. A more satisfactory 

 answer to such a question cannot, perhaps, be produced than by 

 quoting what has been said in relation thereto by — certainly the 

 best author, out of our own country, on the subject, viz. — Dr. 

 Brauell ; in the translation of whose work — '' An Essay on Po- 

 dotrocholitis'' (navicular joint disease) — we find the following 

 passage : — "The author (Dr. Brauell) commences his '' essay" by 

 passing in review the writings of the ancients, wherein he does 

 not meet with a single passage leading him to infer they possessed 

 any knowledge of the (navicular) disease. The earliest allusions 

 to it are to be found in the works of Lafosse, jun. He was igno- 

 rant neither of the seat nor of some of the peculiarities of podotro- 

 cholitis ; but, confounding it with other diseases of the feet, he 

 failed to give any description of it as a special disease." 



It must seem strange to those who have entered the veterinary 

 profession within the last twenty years, that navicularthritis, a dis- 

 ease now-a-days in everybody's mouth, was thirty years ago un- 

 known. In 1809, when I entered the Royal Veterinary College as 

 a pupil, what were the cases of lameness I found in the college 

 stables] I remember well that a very large proportion of them 

 were called cases of " contraction :" that I found to be the prevalent 

 disease, and that it was to which the Professor's chief attentions 

 were evidently attracted. I found these horses wearing shoes of a 

 particular kind upon their lame feet. Some, tips ; some, bar-shoes ; 

 some shoes with clips at the heels, &c., and all standing for 



