22 ON THK NAVICULAR DISKASE. 



of tlic centre of the bone, about the size of millet 

 seeds ; but, in the progress of the disease, not only 

 would they have been absorbed by friction, but that 

 portion of bone itself on which they appeared would 

 also have been carried away by ulceration. 



REMARKS. 



It affords me no slight gratification, tliat my ex- 

 perience in the feet of horses, as far as it has yet 

 gone, enables me to bear testimony to the truth of 

 very many important points on the foot of the horse, 

 as promulgated by that eminent head and father of 

 our science. Professor Coleman : although I differ 

 from him in practice ; and, with respect to the phy- 

 siology of some important parts of the foot, I must 

 also somewhat differ from the same hioh authority. 



Mr. Coleman says, that the navicular bone is 

 very limited in its action ; and necessarily so, first, 

 by the shortness of its ligaments, which confine it 

 to the coffin and small pastern bones ; and, se- 

 condly, by being so closely bound by the flexor ten- 

 don, just previous to its insertion into the inferior 

 concave part of the coffin bone. 

 On ihr descent I am of opiuion that the navicular ioint, beins: a 



of the navicular , . . , , ,. 



joint. double jomt, adds much to the complicated me- 



chanism of the foot ; and as the end of all joints is 

 motion. Nature certainly intended it to have con- 

 siderable action, although its sphere of motion op- 

 pears very limited. 



