689 
CENTRAL VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
The monthly meeting was held Thursday, August 3rd. Mr. 
Josh. Woodger, sen., in the absence of the President, occupied 
the chair. The preliminary business being concluded, Mr. W. 
Hunting introduced for consideration his essay on “ Obscure 
Eoot Diseases in the Horse,” and commenced by stating that it 
was not his desire his remarks should be accepted without ques- 
tion, but rather that they should be submitted to critical exami- 
nation in test of their correctness. The obscure character of 
foot diseases had always been acknowledged, and he feared that 
it would be difficult for him to render the subject as clear and 
intelligible as he could wish. If, however, the spirit of inquiry 
were aroused in reference to foot diseases, his object would be 
attained. 
Mr. Hunting first alluded to “ concussion of the feet,” so 
much insisted upon at the present time, and to which is attributed 
much of the lameness existing among horses. He believed that 
70 per cent, of the cases of lameness met with in horses to be 
due to faulty methods of shoeing, giving rise to the consequences 
which are mistaken for the results of jar or concussion. 
In support of this argument the anatomical and physiological 
peculiarities of the horse's limbs were succinctly and clearly com- 
mented upon, for the purpose of showing the unmistakable fact 
that so much order and precision could only have been secured by 
nature to confer a most elaborate system of co-ordination of move- 
ment in parts destined to important correlative functions. 
On the subject of “ fever in the feet,” Mr. Hunting declared 
himself to be a disbeliever in the existence of such a pathological 
state. He considered the appellation to be incorrect, and pertinently 
put the queries, why the existence of fever, as a constitutional state, 
is limited in these instances to the feet ? and upon what grounds 
are similar diseases of other organs excluded from the same kind 
of description? Navicular disease, or navicularthritis, he also 
looked upon as a convenient term for designating the existence 
of all obscure diseases of the feet. Many affections to which a 
proper term cannot be applied, by reason of the signs to which 
they give rise being unintelligible, are described as navicular- 
thritis, notwithstanding the animals affected therewith, are known 
to recover. It was not his intention to deny the existence of such 
a disease as navicularthritis, but he would assert that in every 
hundred cases of lameness, from so-called navicular disease, not 
more than 1 0 per cent, could be clearly defined as such, while the 
remaining 90 per cent, are due to faulty shoeing, and are re- 
coverable under proper management. 
