160 SYMPTOMS OF NAVICULARTHRITIS. 



be anticipated from such relapses, and this may be expected to 

 set in at a period more or less remote according as circumstances 

 prove favourable or otherwise ; relapse following relapse at inter- 

 vals, long or short, as the case may be, until, in the end, such 

 morbid changes take place in the diseased foot as render restora- 

 tion of normal function and feeling impracticable, and the conse- 

 quence is irremoveable lameness. And such will too frequently 

 happen even under every advantage of treatment and repose. 

 When, however, neither rest nor remedial treatment are had re- 

 course to, but, on the contrary, the horse, lame as he is, is worked 

 on, permanent lameness, of course, will become established at a 

 much earlier period : nor will the case experience any decided 

 remission of lameness ; though, in general, a good deal more lame- 

 ness, even by such a case, will be shewn at one time than at 

 another, owing to attendant circumstances, such as work, rest, 

 shoeing, dryness or humidity of hoof, &c. A lame horse, thus 

 neglected or abused, will commonly come before us with marked 

 symptoms of the inveteracy and irremediableness of his ailment. 

 From continual uneasiness or actual pain in it, he is in the con- 

 stant habit of pointing the lame foot; and this removal of the weight 

 off the foot while standing, combined with the little impress of 

 weight upon it during action, in the course of time, becomes the 

 indirect cause of certain physical alterations in the external foot, 

 independent of any of another kind that may be going on in its 

 interior. From absence of its accustomed impress of weight from 

 above, by the force of which, in health, it is kept expanded, the hoof 

 contracts, particularly at the heels and quarters ; and contracts, 

 not only in its lateral but in its vertical diameter likewise, across 

 from sole to wall : the lame foot becomes, in fact, altogether smaller 

 than its fellow ; the difference in magnitude between the two fore 

 feet, as the horse stands before his examiner, being now perfectly 

 obvious; and, moreover, the same is satisfactorily demonstrable 

 by actual admeasurement. Such change in the form and magni- 

 tude of the hoof of the lame foot is, of itself, eminently pathogno- 

 monic : Mr. Turner feels " thoroughly satisfied that when con- 

 traction is accompanied with chronic lameness, disease exists in 

 the navicular joint, either structural or functional." The shelviiig- 

 in of the wall, and the concentric eminencies or rims upon it, 



