LAMENESS IN HORSES. 487 
man’s mode of reasoning, derived from the writers on farriery 
before him, was, that hoof-bound or contraction of the hoof 
caused pain and lameness, by squeezing the sensitive tissues of 
the foot contained within it, after the manner that tight shoes 
or boots squeeze our feet. It is observable, however, that lame- 
ness never sets in until inflammation has made its appearance. 
A horse recently lame in a contracted foot will manifest heat in 
that foot, shewing that the lameness is not the result of the 
contraction — which may have been present long before — but of 
the inflammation which has now supervened upon the contrac- 
tion. Indeed, when we come to reflect upon the history of the 
case, for how long a time the contraction has been, by imper- 
ceptible degrees, coming on, and that the parts within the hoof 
cannot fail, during this length of time, to have accommodated 
themselves to the diminished space, as well by absorption as by 
alteration of position, we can hardly imagine that lameness 
would be consecutive on the contraction. Even the inflamma- 
tion is hardly referrible to the contraction. Rather, it is much 
more likely to be immediately produced by some concussion or 
contusion of the contracted foot in action, to the production of 
which no doubt the contracted, unyielding, rigid condition of 
the hoof has mainly contributed. But the time is come for us 
to consider 
Mixed Contraction — that kind of contraction which does 
occasion lameness — contraction in combination with inflamma- 
tion, or some one or other of its consequences. Now that we 
know so much about navicularthritis, we can readily understand 
how it was that Coleman was so addicted to the practice of 
ascribing lameness to contraction. At the time he did so he was 
ignorant, if not of the very existence at all events of the great 
prevalence, of disease of the navicular joint. He beheld the 
contraction, and beyond that there was nothing in his eye to 
account for the lameness. He took the inflammation present to 
be the consequence of the contraction ; not dreaming that it de- 
pended upon another, an undiscovered cause. Moorcroft ad- 
vanced a step further towards the development of the real or 
proximate cause of the lameness. He suggested the presence of 
pure contraction , as distinguished from contraction connected 
with deep-seated injury of the foot. To Turner, however, it was 
left to discover in what this “ deep-seated injury” consisted. 
Through the unerring guidance of morbid anatomy he demon- 
strated that it was not the coffin-joint which was the seat of 
injury, but the navicular joint. “ I have dissected all the 
groggy feet 1 have been able to procure,” says he, “ and have 
found the navicular joint diseased in every instance .” But, is 
a “ groggy” foot a contracted foot] Not necessarily. Some- 
