534 
AN ESSAY ON CHRONIC PODOTROCHOLITIS. 
cases have become much less frequent since Turner has caused the 
navicular disease to be better understood : previously, all fell into 
the same errors, and every lameness, the seat of which was obscure 
and doubtful, was attributed to the shoulder ; but now the trochlea 
of the foot is carefully examined, and neurotomy often relieves a 
horse of a lameness for which he would formerly have been tortured 
by applications to the shoulder. It is thus that the frequency of the 
navicular disease in England may be explained : it would be the 
same in other countries if sound judgment, not the mere caprice 
of custom, presided over the examinations of scientific men. 
From what has already been said, it appears that shoulder- 
lameness is the affection with which podotrocholitis is oftenest 
confounded ; we must, therefore, fix upon some certain criteria by 
which the two diseases may be distinguished the one from the 
other. So long as the rudis indigestaque moles of the symptom- 
atology of shoulder-lameness remains, so long will it be a Herculean 
task to cleanse this Augean stable, and we must not hope to be able 
to make use of the phenomena attributed to lameness in the shoulder 
for any diagnostical purpose; for, if we did, we should justly draw 
upon ourselves the reproach of having propagated error. Under 
such circumstances I am compelled to have recourse to accessory 
circumstances in order to fill up this gap, and serve as guides to 
our better judgment. In fact, chronic podotrocholitis does not 
manifest itself evidently or palpably : from its seat it is concealed 
from the direct cognizance of the senses, and its diagnostic thus 
becomes the more difficult. Everywhere, and in all cases, the 
history as well as the whole of the symptoms must be collected to 
remove all doubts. 
If the position of the limb in the stable, the abnormal movements 
observed in the various paces, some local indications, the negative 
and anamnestic phenomena, lead us to suspect the existence of 
podotrocholitis, the following proceeding may be adopted in order 
to arrive at a certainty. The shoe should be taken off the affected 
foot, and the sole and frog pared out and thinned as much as 
possible ; and when it has been ascertained that the subjacent 
tissues are not in pain, a permanent pressure should be maintained 
on the frog by means of a bar shoe, the cross bar of which has been 
provided with a triangular stuffing which presses upon its branches. 
Podotrocholitis will betray itself by a greater degree of lameness*; 
but the effect of this compression is not always immediate, it 
depends upon the resistance offered by the horn ; it therefore 
* It may be objected to this practice, that, by rendering the lameness more 
intense, it acts in concert with the cause ; the evil, however, resulting from it is 
not to be compared with that which is occasioned when, before having establish- 
ed a perfect diagnostic, some course of treatment is resorted to at hazard. 
