ON TIIK NAVICULAR DISEASE. 41 



by the salutary pressure of the animal's own 

 weight ; thus rendering every minute that the horse Rtpiar. ment 

 stands conducive to the depression of the navicular of ti!.'' "coffin 

 bone and heels of the coffin bone. But it should be bones. 

 observed, that I am not urgino; the patient to bear 

 his weight on the diseased joint till after its in- 

 flamed vessels have been relieved by the blood- 

 letting. 



The other advantage accruing from the removal 

 of the toe is, the freedom which it affords to the 

 quarters, by diminishing the great resisting power 

 of the crust (which is generally morbidly strong at 

 the toe in navicular lameness), and thereby favour- 

 ing the return of the navicular bone, and heels of 

 the coffin, to their natural situations in the horny 

 box. 



Those of the old school were accustomed to rasp 

 the crust in front nearly to the quick, from the 

 coronet three-fourths down, a practice which is now 

 quite discarded, and, in my opinion, with sound 

 reason, owing to a practical inconvenience which 

 almost invariably occurred from it, viz. a transverse 

 fissure or cleft between the new foot and the old, 

 when the crust had grown about three parts down, 

 and of itself a source of pain and lameness. The 

 plan I propose is exactly the reverse, and consists 

 in removing only that lower portion of the crust 

 which they as studiously retained. 



But there is another old method deserving of no- 



