88 ON TIIE NAVICULAR DISEASE AND NEUROTOMY. 
starved whelp is sure to perish. When Dr. Jenner established 
the preventive efficacy of the vaccine matter, his kind heart in¬ 
duced him to wish to extend the blessing beyond the human 
being. If he could preserve the meanest quadruped from pain¬ 
ful or fatal disease, he was adding to the general sum of hap¬ 
piness. His benevolent feeling got the better of his excellent 
judgment; and he fancied and maintained that the cow-pox was 
a preservative against maladies as different from it as gout from 
consumption. He even published the result of many experiments 
on the preventive power of the cow-pox against distemper. It, 
however, unfortunately happened that his description of distem¬ 
per was no more like the true disease than “ I to Hercules.” 
It was made up of distemper and rabies, and unlike both. I have 
again and again put the power of this boasted preventive to the 
test, and I can say, without the slightest hesitation, that it is 
altogether without effect. I know many gentlemen who have 
placed implicit faith in the power of vaccination, and their whole 
kennel has been submitted to the operation. The season has 
been favourable, and the disease either has not appeared, or has 
assumed the mildest type, and I have got into sad disgrace; but 
many years have not passed before the distemper has broken out, 
and carried off the majority of those who were supposed to be 
exempted from its attack. 
ON THE NAVICULAR DISEASE, AND NEUROTOMY. 
By W. Dick, Esq. Lecturer on Veterinary Anatomy , fyc. 
Edinburgh. 
To the Editors of u The k eterinarian 
Gentlemen, —I have read with pleasure, in your last number, 
Mr. Turner's ^ingenious essay on the Symptoms and Cure of 
Navicular Lameness. In it he has introduced an observation 
I have made on the effects of friction in the navicular bursa after 
neurotomy, and has mentioned some cases to show that the fric¬ 
tion alluded to is not always necessary to constitute the failure 
of the operation by the descent of the fetlock in old and extreme 
cases. As, however, the same object may be expected to pre¬ 
sent different appearances, according to the theoretical medium 
through which it is viewed, I take the liberty of troubling you 
with the following remarks. 
I have mentioned, in the essay to which Mr. Turner alludes, 
that in some cases the ulcerated surface of the navicular bone 
