NAVICULAR DISEASE. 377 
removal of the shoe. Omit all bleeding. If the bowels are costive, 
allow a portion of green-meat until the evil is removed; but do not 
produce purgation. All medicine of a debilitating character must be 
withheld. Give, night and morning, a quart of stout; allow two drinks, 
each containing one ounce of ether, in half a pint of water, during the 
day. This, with half-drachm doses of belladonna as needed to allay any 
symptoms of pain, will constitute the whole of the treatment. 
As regards food, it should consist of sound oats previously ground, 
and a moderate allowance of crushed, old beans. The water should be 
whitened, and all hay strictly withheld. The animal should not be left 
night or day, and gentleness should be enjoined upon its attendant. The 
food, however, should not be without limit; five feeds of corn are enough 
for one day, if the horse will eat so much. 
Should dropping of the coffin-bone end the attack, it is only charity 
to terminate the existence. In Mr. W. Percival’s admirable work the 
reader will find described at length a method proposed for restoring the 
bone to its original position. The author has seen that plan tried more 
than once, but never beheld any good result. The knacker has, in every 
case, been called in to finish the unsuccessful experiment. 
The horse, however, which recovers from an attack of laminitis, either 
in the acute or subacute form, should ever after be shod with leather ; 
and were this admirable practice universal, probably, by deadening con- 
cussion, it might altogether eradicate the disease. The expense is the 
objection to its adoption ; but against the cost, the horse proprietor has 
to ask himself, What are a few shillings extra, at each shoeing, to secure 
immunity from that horrible disorder to which the servant of his pleasure 
is exposed ? 
NAVICULAR DISEASE. 
This is the scourge of willing horse-flesh ; it is the disease from which 
favorite steeds mostly suffer; it is not less fatal in its termination than 
vexatious in its course and painful during its existence. 
The malignancy of the disorder is expended upon the substances which 
in health are without feeling, but which occasion the most acute anguish 
when affected by disease—namely, bone, tendon, and synovial membrane. 
Strictly confined to these structures, and frequently limited to a space 
not half an inch in diameter, the suffering it occasions is such as often 
provokes the sacrifice of the life, and invariably renders the animal next 
to useless. 
It is confined to the interior of the foot, being, as its name implies, 
strictly located upon the navicular bone. The navicular bone is a small 
bone attached to the posterior portion of the os pedis, and resting upon 
