AN ESSAY ON CHRONIC PODOTROCHOLITIS. 
533 
&c. Nor was I alone in seeking for the lameness in the shoulder : 
the old practitioner would have shared my opinion. The employ- 
ment of irritating frictions and a period of total rest, having brought 
the movements to their natural state, seemed to justify this 
diagnostic, though subsequent events proved it to be false. The 
animal experienced several relapses, and three times did the above- 
mentioned means re-establish him. The lameness re-appeared for 
the fourth time, and I then had recourse to neurotomy. After the 
operation, the animal rested the limb firmly on the ground. A fresh 
relapse having manifested itself six months afterwards, the animal 
was destroyed. On post-mortem examination, the shoulder pre- 
sented no abnormal appearances, nor could any trace of old or recent 
affection be discovered there ; but podotrocholitis had produced 
some extraordinary disease in the trochlea. Since then I have 
frequently performed the operation of neurotomy on horses that 
had been treated by other veterinary surgeons for shoulder-lameness, 
and among the numbers were several that had been rubbed with 
irritating lotions or ointments, and occasionally had recovered their 
soundness of action. Section of the plantar nerves always re- 
moved the lameness. During my residence at Wilna, I bought a 
great number of horses said to be suffering from shoulder-lameness, 
and, in order to convince myself, had them destroyed, and proceeded 
immediately to make a post-mortem examination of parts. Not- 
withstanding the most minute examination, I was unable to detect 
any morbid alteration of the supposed diseased shoulders, but all, on 
the contrary, shewed traces of more or less serious disease of the 
trochlea of the foot. Far be it from me to conclude from these facts 
that shoulder-lameness should be erased from our nosological cata- 
logue : pathological anatomy would immediately convict me of error 
if I did so ; for it has afforded us practical proof of the existence of 
various diseases in the shoulder, of all of which lameness is a 
natural consequence; but my observations enable me to lay it down 
as a principle that shoulder-lameness is not so frequent as is 
generally supposed ; and on this point I fully agree with Lafosse*. 
Where no tangible alterations of the shoulder can be discovered, 
shoulder-lameness being diagnosticated in an empirical manner, the 
evil in general has its seat in the trochlea of the foot; hence it 
arrives, that to those who have studied podotrocholitis under all its 
phases, shoulder-lameness becomes a rare disease; but the less they 
know of the former, the more inclined are they to direct their 
attention to the shoulder exclusively. In England, these assumed 
* Guide du Marshal, Avignon , 1803, p. 228 “ Sprains are not of so 
frequent occurrence as they are generally said to be. A horse is often said to 
be sprained when the disease is in the foot or the lower articulations of the 
leg. In a word, there is no sprain without apparent and sensible swelling. 
