370 
NAV ICULARTHR1TIS. 
stages of the disease, wherein lameness is rather the consequence 
of altered form and structure than of inflammatory action. Indeed, 
in navicularthritic disease in general the inflammation present sel- 
dom runs beyond what we call the sub-acute character ; and there- 
fore does not give rise to any very great deal of preternatural heat 
of hoof. Another circumstance accounting for the little heat that 
is to be detected in navicularthritis is the thickness of substance, 
and consequent distance, there is between the seat of disease and 
part to which the hand can be applied — the wall of the hoof or 
the sole : the latter, after being pared out, being, in point of fact, 
the nearest point to the navicular joint. After both soles have 
been cleaned out, Mr. Turner informs us, he has generally de- 
tected “ an extra-proportion of heat in (that of) the lame foot 
adding — “ but the throbbing of the pastern arteries is a more im- 
portant criterion.” Usually, also, there is some augmentation of 
heat, and of fulness with it, to be perceived around the coronet : 
a symptom that seems natural enough when we come to reflect on 
the vascular composition of the coronary substance — on the quan- 
tity of blood it must always contain, even when the foot is in 
health, and to what extent that quantity is likely to become aug- 
mented under disease. The fulness around the coronet will ac- 
count for the appearance of sinking or falling-in which the hoof of 
the lame foot presents. It will also serve to explain the origin of 
the rimminess which the hoof in after days is so likely to exhibit : 
the secretion of horn (which takes place in the coronary substance) 
being naturally much influenced under congested and inflammatory 
conditions of that vascular substance. 
Relapse. Careful inquiry should be made, and carried back 
as far as it conveniently can be, with a view of ascertaining 
whether the present be a first or second or third attack of lameness 
in the same foot, and whether or not any thing of the kind has 
ever happened to the opposite fore foot : the very circumstance of 
relapse , from the known tendency of navicularthritis to return, 
adding important weight in the consideration of symptoms, to say 
nothing about the influence it must necessarily have over prospects 
held out in the treatment of the case. No lameness is so apt to 
return as that arising from navicularthritis. Were a person a 
hundred miles off to write a letter to a veterinary surgeon, saying, 
“ My horse goes lame, and I can discover no cause or semblance 
of cause whatever for the lameness ; — there is nothing par- 
ticular to be observed in his action to lead to a belief that it is 
shoulder lameness; — once or twice he has through repose be- 
come sound again, though lameness has not failed to relapse every 
time he has been returned to work again — and in the stable, 
and often out of the stable, the horse points his lame foot;” — I say, 
