THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XX, No. 233. MAY 1847. New Series, No. 65. 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S. and V.S. 
[Continued from p. 186.] 
NAVICULARTHRITIS. 
PREDISPOSITION. — The notorious fact of the foot predisposed 
to navicularthritis, or actually attacked by the disease, presenting a 
hoof which for normal aspect might be selected as a specimen of 
health, with a frog such as Coleman would have pronounced to be 
perfection, while it puzzles the non-professional man, is at once 
seized upon by the veterinary surgeon, supposing the horse to be 
lame of the foot, as pathognomonic of the nature of the case. Be- 
holding so good-a-looking foot, and yet a lame foot, his suspicions 
become at once aroused, and the probability is that investigation 
into the cause of the lameness confirms them. Contraction has 
certainly nothing to do with the case ; on the contrary, the foot is 
open at the heels, and presents a bold prominent frog, a frog that 
has evidently been all along receiving a full amount of pressure 
from the ground, and been in full play in consequence, and so has 
warded off contraction. Whenever contraction proves to be an 
accompaniment of navicularthritis, one disease will be commonly 
found to be the sequel of the other, contraction of the hoof being 
very likely to supervene upon such favouring of the foot as the 
pain and lameness of navicularthritis necessarily entails. 
The contracted foot, I repeat, with its high heels, and its raised and 
shrunken, and perhaps diseased, frog, may be regarded as possessing 
a kind of immunity from navicularthritis ; and, presently, we shall 
perceive the reason of this. The curious correlative fact, however, 
is, that neither is the broad or flat foot, no more than the narrow 
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