Extracts from Domestic <&. Foreign Journals, Veterinary, 
medical, Agricultural, Sporting, &c. 
An Essay on Chronic Podotrocholitis. 
By Dr. BRAUELL, Professor at the University of Kasan, 
(Analysed and translated by M. S. Veeheyen.) 
Chronic Podotrocholitis, otherwise known as the navi- 
cular disease , has not escaped the attention of veterinarians. 
Many make mention of it in their writings ; but all their observa- 
tions, not even excepting those of the English, are too incomplete 
to enable one to form a just idea of this affection. This author, 
who was formerly the clinical professor at the university of Wilna, 
struck by the frequency and malignity of chronic podotrocholitis, 
and the number of horses ruined by it, devoted himself particularly 
to the study of this disease of the feet in horses. During the 
course of a six years’ practice, he collected together numerous 
fresh facts, furnished him by his anatomical and physiological re- 
searches, as well as by a great number of vivisections. His 
work raised questions he wished to elucidate ; but being compelled 
by his new appointment on the banks of the Volga to renounce 
veterinary practice, he expressed a desire that others would enter 
upon fresh investigations, and supply that which he left wanting. 
The author commences by passing in review the writings of the 
ancients, wherein he does not meet with a single passage leading 
us to infer they had any notion of the disease. It is Lafosse in 
whose works the first allusions to it are found. 
Lafosse, jun., was neither ignorant of the seat nor of some of 
the peculiarities of chronic podotrocholitis ; but, confounding it 
with other diseases of the feet, failed to give any description of it 
as a special disease. He must not, however, be blamed on that 
account. The gigantic works undertaken by this remarkable man 
rendered it impossible for him to bring to maturity all the germs 
he discovered. His successors are much more inexcusable for not 
endeavouring to work out the evident hints he had given ; and 
the reproach is doubly merited by his compatriots, who, after a 
long series of years, have to receive that light from foreigners, the 
first spark of which emanated from one of their own countrymen. 
The English, incited by the great value of their horses, and the 
lucrative use made of them, studied the diseases of the foot with 
an ardour and success which no other nation have ever equalled. 
