820 



DISEASES AND THEIR TREATMENT. 



rapidly as such complication admits of. It was subsequently ascer- 

 tained that the horse had been unnerved two or three years previ- 

 ously, had been for years lame, and for some time had worked in a 

 cab. The recovery of the horse having been advanced, so that he 

 was capable, under special care, of rendering some service, the 

 question arose what should be done with him. We had no require- 

 ment for such services as might have been rendered on a farm, and 

 it was resolved not to part with him; the only alternative was 

 taken of putting an end to his life; and finally of making the best 

 possible use of the case for future instruction. 



FIG. 725. 



Dissection of the feet revealed more than we had made out 

 during the life of the animal; the fractured bone was not predicted, 

 nor was it possible, beyond guessing, that it could have been, amidst 

 the mass of change and destruction of parts; but in the sequel it 

 has been of inestimable value as a pathological specimen, unique, 

 as far as I have seen, in character. I have seen no other instance, 

 nor do collections contain one, of a navicular-bone, as the sequel to 

 inveterate degeneracy, being broken into so many fragments, and 

 then uniting so completely, the foot rendered painless, and the horse 

 becoming, to a possible degree, useful. 



Fig. 725 represents another complicated case in which extensive 

 disease and wasting of the coffin-bone was followed by fracture of 

 the navicular-bone. The subject, a grey cart-horse, was taken to 

 the New Veterinary College in 1864, when excessively lame, and 

 left there for treatment. At the time no opinion was pronounced 

 on the case; the horse had been under treatment. 



