150 ON THE NAVICULAR DISEASE AND SPAVIN. 
Much has been said about the natural shape of the hoof being 
such as to favour the occurrence of the navicular disease, and 
Mr. Coleman has contended that a circular foot, with a wide 
heel, is the most unlikely to engender disease. I may be 
wrong, but my idea on this point is directly at variance with his; 
and my experience leads me to believe that the oblong foot, with 
a moderate span for the heel, is the best for all purposes, and 
the most likely to keep free from disease. 
Contraction is such a familiar term, and so misapplied among 
horsemen, whose knowledge is but slender about feet, that I 
cannot omit this opportunity of stating my conviction that it 
will be found a difficult task to produce a horse lame from this 
cause alone. The natural form of the foot differs in the horse as 
much as any other part of his make and shape, and I can pro¬ 
duce numerous instances of feet that would, by many, be pro¬ 
nounced “ unsound from contraction ;” yet that would have 
proved the fallaciousness of such an opinion. 
I have now a horse under my care whose cartilages and heels 
are so wrapped over each other, that the space of the frog is not 
one-third of its natural dimension; yet this horse has been for 
years subjected to severe w 7 ork, and was never known to be 
lame. 
Here is a case in which the laminm have been pressed on very 
severely, from an external cause : it is what is called a seedy 
toe. Internally, you feel a large projection into the hoof, and 
which was accompanied by a corresponding sulcus in the sensible 
laminse and coffin bone; yet this animal was seventeen years in 
severe work, and never lame. Here are two feet, beautiful in 
shape. There is no contraction of the inner quarter; no occult 
contraction, nor any appearance of alteration in form whatever: 
yet the horse became lame in both feet when three years old, 
and continued quite groggy till he was destroyed, at the age of 
fourteen ; and you may judge from these navicular bones what a 
cripple he must have been during life. 
Mr. Turner has described what he considers as antecedent or 
precursory symptoms of the navicular disease, “ the occult con¬ 
traction, ?? which I take to be nothing more or less than what has 
hitherto been known by the term of concave or morbidly thick 
sole, and which often occurs without producing the navicular 
disease; u the falling in of the inner quarter,” which is often pre¬ 
sent without any other symptom, or any lameness; and “ the de¬ 
generation of the fatty frog into a hard substance,” of which, 
as I have never seen it, I cannot form an accurate judgment. 
On these antecedent symptoms, I will quote to you his own 
words:—“ To detect the existence of this insidious disease 
