THE HORSE IN SICKNESS AND DISEASE 411 



especially if the probe touches bone, the case is of ^reai 

 difficulty and doubt. 



Mr. Spooner objects to White's " severe treatment " with 

 caustics, and says there is danger of destroying the lateral 

 cartilage and producing false quarter ; in which we agree 

 Mr. Newport, in the Veterinarian, reports cures by 

 injecting a saturated solution of sulphate of zinc every 

 twenty-four hours, poulticing also the foot. This is much 

 less painful, and, we believe, quite as efficacious. In severe 

 cases, setons from the lower parts of the sinuses and brought 

 out at the heels, or between the bars and frog, are often 

 serviceable. 



NAVICULAR-JOINT DISEASE — " GROGGY " LAMENESS. 



In stable phrase, the horse afflicted with what some 

 modern veterinarians have called " navicularthritis," is not 

 inaptly described by the grotesque term "groggy." The 

 learned compound term " navicularthritis " is simply 

 pedantic nonsense, and expresses what the disease is not 



The perforans tendon is inserted in the hinder part oi 

 the coffin-bone, and to reach that part it passes under the 

 navicular-bone, which rests upon it, with the interposition 

 of a small synovial sac, for facilitating the motion of the 

 little bone upon the tendon. It is on the upper side only 

 of this sac that the appearances of navicular disease are 

 found after death. The sac above the navicular-bone, and 

 between it and the lower bone of the pastern, is never 

 found partaking in the disease. 



The cause of the disorder, which is direct injury, is 

 obvious. The immense weight of the animal has been 

 placed with an impetus on some hard substance which has 

 taken the foot at a disadvantage, and bruised the navicular- 

 bone — the first solid substance receiving the extreme 

 concussion. True, that the fleshy frog and the body of the 

 dense perforans tendon lie between the face receiving the 

 blow and the injured bone; but the fleshy frog is by 

 nature highly organised, and adapted by its secretory 

 powers to recover its tone, while the tendon, less organised, 

 is wonderfully elastic and yielding in the living subject. 

 The bone, then, the first unyielding substance, receives per- 

 manent injury from the concussion, forced downward as it 

 is from above by the coronary bone. When the injury is 



