182 
VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
tion is the usual cause of the navicular disease, I must totally 
dissent from that part of the treatment which hinges on this con¬ 
traction. I approve of the bleeding, and the other means taken 
to abate inflammation; but I should be very loath to submit my 
horse to all that Mr. Turner recommends. 
Mr. Turner observed, that there was an eminent practitioner 
who had been the zealous advocate of the screw-shoe, and under 
his management many horses had worn it even for a twelvemonth. 
The screw-shoe had failed. If he thought he could expand the 
foot in half the time usually devoted to the screw-shoe, he surely 
had a right to pursue his own plan: after he had for a sufficient 
period enveloped the foot in mucilage, and properly prepared it at 
the quarter and the toe, he could pull it asunder as easily as he 
could a cloven foot; and if at some future time his plan was not 
generally adopted, he knew nothing of the horse. 
Mr. W. Percivall. —Mr. Turner has failed to shew that con¬ 
traction is a primary circumstance. 
Mr. T. Turner asked whether, supposing a horse was examined 
whose feet, to the eye of the experienced veterinarian, put on the 
occult appearances of navicular disease, and indicated that there 
was something wrong in the internal structure, the mode of treat¬ 
ment recommended by his brother did not seem to be indispensa¬ 
ble; provided the owner did not object to the time necessary to 
reproduce the horn. He thought the plan proposed was likely to 
effect all that could be done with such feet. 
Mr. Goodwin confessed his experience was contrary to that 
of Mr. T. Turner; indeed he was assured that in the great 
majority of cases there were none of these occult appear¬ 
ances. The disease will however very speedily produce dis¬ 
organization. Altered shape is the consequence and not the 
cause of disease. Mr. Turner had not distinguished between 
the chronic and acute disease. It seemed that in either he would 
bleed at the toe, or cut away the heel. He would say, put the 
horse into a loose box, and pursue the plan he had already de¬ 
tailed, and in nineteen cases out of twenty he will get sound. 
Mr. Turner still believed that it was of the utmost importance 
to attend to the hollowed form of the foot, but of which Mr. Per¬ 
civall and Mr. Goodwin seemed to think so lightly. He believed, 
however, that many of these cases commenced in parts exterior to 
the joint, and even on the very surface of the foot, but the joint 
became gradually affected. 
Mr. W. Percivall .—The principal consideration in all these 
cases is to abate inflammation. While Mr. Turner opened the foot 
below, he used additional pressure above, in order to get this cof¬ 
fin bone down into its former place. Would it not be better to 
