414 
AN ESSAY ON CHRONIC PODOTROCHOL1TIS. 
horse is mounted. If the lameness is very evident, the heels 
scarcely touch the ground, and Turner* states, that he has ob- 
served that these parts communicate no motion to the straws of 
fresh litter at the time the horse is passing over it. 
When the horse is first mounted, and before he warms, his pace 
is much embarrassed; gradually the motions become freer ; but a 
long ride, or heavy fatiguing work, will render the lameness more 
intense ; the diseased limb becomes fatigued, the horse stumbles 
frequently, and very often falls. Hardly has the animal stopped 
when the extremity instantly assumes that state of semi-flexion, 
the body bends forwards, and a general trembling may be per- 
ceived, and the pastern is inclined towards the toe. From time 
to time the animal assumes a natural position, but does not keep 
it long. 
After a few days’ or a few weeks’ rest the lameness, aggravated 
by fatigue, diminishes, becomes insignificant, and sometimes en- 
tirely disappears; but the moment that any circumstance likely to 
recall it presents itself, a relapse is certain, and once again it is 
as bad or worse than ever. 
This intermittent lameness, dependant on rest or fatigue, may 
go on for months, or even years ; insensibly, however, it becomes 
more decided, and at length continuous ; not that it ever, at least 
that I have seen, attains that intensity accompanying the lame- 
ness in cases of podophyllitis. 
When both feet are affected with chronic podotrocholitis, the 
anterior limbs alternately assume the position we have described, 
with this only difference, that the one which is most diseased 
maintains it longest. That one of the extremities on which falls 
the weight of the fore-quarter, is stiff throughout its whole extent, 
with the exception of the knee, which is flexed and sometimes 
arched ; the pastern has a perpendicular direction, slightly inclining 
forwards. In this position the weight falls chiefly on the toe, the 
navicular bone is raised, and its posterior surface thus preserved 
from compression. 
As soon as the horse finds an opportunity of lying down he fre- 
quently avails himself of it ; when obliged to move, his paces are 
shortened, his shoulders appear pinned, and his mode of pro- 
gression, as Spooner justly observes, has been well described by 
an English coachman, who said, “ The horse moves like an old 
cripple with two wooden legs.” We might also describe it by 
saying, he walks on stilts. In fact, if urged to a trot, the stiffness 
of his motions would lead one to suppose that the limbs were des- 
titute of joints, or formed in one piece. At every progressive 
The Veterinarian, 1830. 
