158 SYMPTOMS OF NAVICULARTHRITIS. 



nothing about the influence it must necessarily have over prospects 

 held out in the treatment of the case. No lameness is so apt to 

 return as that arising from navicularthritis. Were a person a 

 hundred miles off* to write a letter to a veterinary surgeon, saying, 

 " My horse goes lame, and I can discover no cause or semblance 

 of cause whatever for the lameness; — there is nothing parti- 

 cular to be observed in his action to lead to a belief that it is 

 shoulder lameness; — once or twice he has through repose be- 

 come sound again, though lameness has not failed to relapse every 

 time he has been returned to work again — ^and in the stable, 

 and often out of the stable, the horse points his lame foot;" — I say, 

 were a person to write thus concerning his lame horse, any veteri- 

 nary surgeon to whom he wrote might, in his own mind, without 

 any great apprehension of being mistaken, set the case down as 

 navicularthritis. 



Commonly, the lameness relapses in the same foot ; now and 

 then, rarely until it has more than once returned, the fellow fore 

 foot contracts the disease ; and when it does, the first stone may be 

 said to be laid for the foundation of grogginess : a sad termination, 

 which, even by the most judicious and prompt treatment, can but be 

 deferred for a longer or shorter period, rarely or never averted. 

 After slight and cursory treatment, though the lameness be re- 

 moved, should the horse be put immediately after to work, it will 

 be almost sure to return : the only safeguard we know being 

 energetic treatment at once, and that followed up by sufficiency of 

 repose. There is more probability of a horse standing sound in 

 his work after a first than after a second attack : and yet I have 

 known many instances of horses standing their work after relapse, 

 particularly when the second attack has occurred at no long in- 

 terval of time from the first. When, however, a horse comes to 

 experience a third attack of lameness in the same foot, but little 

 reliance can be placed on him afterwards. He may, and probably 

 will, by proper treatment and rest, be restored to soundness again; 

 but not, I should fear, to stand. 1 can hardly recall to mind an 

 instance where a third attack has not been succeeded by a fourth, 

 and that by a fifth and a sixth : irremoveable lameness in one foot, 

 or in both (grogginess) being the final catastrophe. To give a few 

 examples, with the view of shewing how, in general, such cases 



