148 ON TIIE NAVICULAR DISEASE AND SPAVIN. 
me a specimen of a navicular joint, which shews that we are not 
always warranted in drawing an unfavourable conclusion. It 
was taken from a horse that worked many years tolerably sound 
after the operation of neurotomy had been performed upon him : 
the joint is entirely obliterated, adhesions having united the 
surface of the tendon to the opposite surface of the navicular 
bone ; and perhaps such a result in these cases oftener takes 
place than we imagine. Favourable consequences, however, can 
only be expected when this occurrence happens in the navicular 
joint, for in any other permanent lameness it would be inevitable. 
It is during the first stage of the disease, that is, when in¬ 
flammation is commencing, that I conceive the affection to be 
the most painful; and the lameness is generally of a more de¬ 
cided character at first than afterwards. When the synovial 
membrane becomes abraded, the cartilages coming in contact do 
not, perhaps, produce the same pain as when the sensibility of 
the membrane was increased by inflammation and unimpaired by 
ulceration. 
It were certainly desirable for us to be able to distinguish when 
such alterations in joints have taken place; for when our ad¬ 
vancement in veterinary science shall have obtained us such a 
knowledge, our prognosis on the subject of soundness will be 
more accurate, and our treatment of disease more correct. I 
have no doubt that, under the same circumstances, the period 
when ulceration takes place occurs about the same time ; and 
that we might by strict observation and close attention to symp¬ 
toms, and by taking notes of them, offer much important infor¬ 
mation to the veterinary world. In the human subject the feel¬ 
ings of the patient in these affections direct the surgeon’s atten¬ 
tion to a train of symptoms, which enable him to make compa¬ 
risons and observations, and give him a decided superiority in 
his knowledge of the actual state of disease, and the remedies 
which he applies. The surgeon can with effect enjoin rest to the 
tortured joint of his patient; not so with us: and yet, with all 
his judicious treatment, he is too often convinced of his inability 
to arrest disease in a joint. 
Referring to books on surgery, we find, among diseases of 
joints, “ ulceration of the cartilages” described as an affection 
existing long before any alteration is produced in the synovial 
membrane. In the horse I am not aware that such a disease has 
ever been observed to exist as a primary affection. 
When suppuration in a joint takes place, which, fortunately, 
is by no means of frequent occurrence, alarming symptoms, en¬ 
dangering the life of the horse, frequently accompany it; and 
if it occur in a joint of any importance, the animal will remain a 
