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NAVICULARTHRITIS. 
Definition. — B y navicularthritis, is to be understood disease 
of the navicular joint giving rise to lameness. 
The History of Navicularthritis will embrace its discovery 
and its PROMULGATION. I never myself heard the navicular disease 
or navicular joint disease so much even as mentioned before Mr. 
Turner published his papers on the subject. My study of veteri- 
nary science, as a pupil, commenced and ended under Professor 
Coleman; and certainly never by my teacher, that I have the most 
distant recollection of, was the word “ navicular,” in connexion with 
or reference to disease, once mentioned. I remember that the Pro- 
fessor attributed foot-lamenesses in general either to disease of the 
sensitive laminae or to contraction of the hoof ; and in my notes of 
his Lectures I find this memorable passage : — “ In nine cases out 
of ten of what are termed * groggy’ or ‘ foundered’ horses, these parts 
(the sensitive laminae), in consequence of chronic inflammation, 
have become altered in structure, effusion of lymph or of bony 
matter taking place.” 
Among the heap of old works on farriery we look in vain for 
any distinct or satisfactory account of navicularthritis ; though it 
would appear allusion is made to disease of the navicular joint un- 
der the denomination of “ sprain of the coffin joint” or “ os calcis ,” 
or “ heel-bone,” the names by which the navicular bone in those 
days went. The work of the earliest date wherein we find such 
allusion is that of Jeremiah Bridges, intituled “ No Foot, No 
Horse,” and published in 1752*. He speaks of “ A Sprain of the 
Coffin Joint,” and directs, by way of treatment for it, drawing 
blood — in the manner we do now — from the foot, and passing a 
seton through “ the hollow of the frog to the pit or hollow of the 
heel, under the foot-lock joint;” with care “ to avoid touching the 
capsule of the lendo palmaris ” (tendo perforans); and in some 
cases “ drawing the soal ;” also, blistering “ three or four inches 
above the hoof;” and, as the “ last attempt” — “ the actual cautery or 
giving the fire” — beginning the strokes “ two inches above the coro- 
net.” Concluding with the observation, that, “ where one horse 
happens to be really lame in the coffin joint, it is mistaken a hun- 
dred times in practice.” 
That Moorcroft — as well, no doubt, as Field, senior, with whom 
he was associated in business, in Oxford-street — knew of the dis- 
ease, we have his own evidence to shew. In a letter to Captain 
(now Sir Edward) Codrington, in 1804t, respecting a horse thought, 
in his own judgment, to be lame from “ contraction,” Moorcroft 
* No Toot no Horse: an Essay on the Anatomy of the Foot of that 
Noble and Useful Animal a Horse, &c. By Jeremiah Bridges, Farrier and 
Anatomist. Baldwin, Paternoster-row, London, 1752. 8vo, pp. 151. 
| Published in vol. xix of The Veterinarian, p. 449. 
