SYMPTOMS AND CURE OF 
38 
With the acute or recent case, accompanied by very consider¬ 
able lameness, there will be a better chance of a radical cure than 
with a chronic case, attended by only a slight lameness, though 
both such cases may, nevertheless, be within the pale of perfect 
recovery. 
A large number which we are called upon to treat are cases of 
long standing, but yet not notoriously lame horses. Some of 
these that may not admit of a radical cure, owing to the dura¬ 
tion of the disease and consequently defective organization of 
the joint, may yet be relieved beyond the most sanguine expecta¬ 
tions of their owners, by removing the rigidity of parts (as before 
detailed) exterior to the joint, and constantly furnishing emol¬ 
lients, in order to preserve elasticity. For this latter purpose, 
when in work, the old simple plan is very serviceable, of stopping 
the soles at night with cow-dung, and anointing the crust with 
neat’s-foot oil. 
On the other hand, there are many in the more advanced 
stages of navicular disease afflicted with a degree of lameness dis¬ 
tressing to behold, which are greatly relieved by a directly 
opposite mode of treatment; such as giving way to the disease 
by allowing the heels to grow high, propping them up with 
thick heel shoes or calkins, and facilitating the efforts of the ex¬ 
tensor muscles to catch the superincumbent weight, which thereby 
falls exclusively on the coffin bone, leaving the carious navicular 
bone exempt from its share of the burthen. This plan of treat¬ 
ment mitigates the animars sufferings, but precludes the pos¬ 
sibility of cure. Yet in such a lost case this is the most humane 
and rational mode of proceeding. 
Mr. Professor Dick, of Edinburgh, has lately remarked, that 
the ulcerated surface of the navicular bone, in protracted or 
severe cases, is frequently so extensive that, after the nerves 
have been divided, the friction between the tendon and the navi¬ 
cular bone completely divides the tendon, and the pastern falls to 
the ground. I advert to this for the purpose of showing, that the 
friction here alluded to is not always necessary to constitute the 
"failure of the operation in old and extreme cases of the disease ; 
for I have, on several occasions, been an eye-witness to the giving 
way of the flexor perforans tendon at this part, immediately on 
the animars being allowed to get up after the operation of neu¬ 
rotomy, and the pastern let down accordingly. To prove that 
very many of these advanced cases of navicular disease are alto¬ 
gether improper subjects for the nerve operation, I have re¬ 
peatedly, on the dissection of such cases (which have been 
destroyed by their owners rather than have them submitted to 
the operation), observed the tendon so attenuated by absorption 
