606 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
the sake of being clearly understood. The fact is, the disease in 
question has seldom or never any thing to do with the navicular 
joint. A joint is an articulation between two bones, and this dis- 
ease is situated between the external surface of a bone and the in- 
ternal surface of a tendon, and cannot be called a joint disease 
at all. 
To return. A better distinction might be, to consider that lame- 
ness in the foot is most plainly shewn when the foot comes to the 
ground, and weight is imposed on it; and in other parts of the 
limb when the foot is in the air, and the limb in the act of motion : 
strains in the flexor tendons, &c. must be excepted, and perhaps 
small fractures in the bones. 
I observe that, in your enumeration of causes, two have escaped 
you, which, however, you have noticed in previous numbers of 
your valuable work ; viz. Rheumatism, and that arising from dis- 
order of the liver ; but your previous notice has made them so 
plain that they require no comment. As to the mode of treatment 
recommended by De Nanzio of Naples, I cannot conceive on what 
principles it is advocated. It is now held as a rule in medicine, 
that counter-irritation, as such and to be of service, must neither 
be too far away from the diseased part, nor too near it. And a 
budding-iron, applied even leniently to the immediate coverings of 
the joint, must aggravate the inflammation in the capsule very 
much, or, more likely, produce sloughing. Chronic inflammation 
of the capsule of a joint is not of that kind which has a tendency 
to resolution on the existing inflammation being raised to a higher 
grade ; and I conceive the benefit the Professor saw in the practice 
resulted from the suppuration of the wound, and not from the ap- 
plication of the cautery to the capsule. 
In the treatment of shoulder lameness by setons, after blisters 
have failed, it is a common practice to allow them to stay in for 
weeks and months, with the delusive hope of benefit. The object 
for which the seton is inserted ought to be, to bring a large amount 
of plastic fibrine to the part, and thus provide the materials from 
whence new muscle may be formed. This the seton certainly 
accomplishes in the first instance; but when it is allowed to remain 
in the shoulder beyond the period when the swelling is on the 
increase, the object of its insertion is rendered comparatively use- 
less ; for the track becomes lined by a pyogenic membrane, and 
the plastic material is crumbled down into pus. The additional 
blood which the irritant draws to the part only serves to keep up 
the suppuration, without in the least advancing the formation of 
new muscle. The only way to derive benefit from the operation 
is to put in two or three long setons, and remove them 'when the 
swelling is at its acme ; to then wait for the organization of the 
