54 THE NAVICOLAR DISEASE, OR CHRONIC 
College, down to the period at which my paper on the subject 
was sent to that institution; and in which interval of time, Pro¬ 
fessor Coleman and Mr. Bracey Clark had immortalized them¬ 
selves by their luminous works on the foot of the horse. 
I shall attempt to answer a question which has been consi¬ 
dered by horse amateurs a great mystery; a question which has 
been proposed by every horseman, but never yet satisfactorily 
answered by any man : it is this—How do you account for so 
many horses, with their feet much contracted, being perfectly 
free from lameness in the midst of hard work ? 
In attempting to elucidate the nature of the navicular disease, 
together with its causes, I find it necessaiy to class contraction 
of the hoof under two heads : the one I would designate as ge¬ 
neral contraction ; the other I must presume to call occult or 
partial contraction. By the former, I mean a foot with narrow 
heels, its figure presenting rather more an oblong than a circular 
shape, with a general diminution of its size and capacity. 
By the latter, occult or partial contraction, I advert to that 
treacherous kind of foot frequently to be met with, which upon 
merely taking up in the stable, without viewing the action of the 
animal, we might (without any disparagement to our judgment) 
be induced to pronounce a good fair average foot, and yet upon 
trotting the horse ten yards, although possessed of sound, clean 
legs, he might prove himself a complete cripple, groggy, and 
incurably lame. 
My own experience in the treatment of chronic foot lameness, 
since the year 1816, has afforded me opportunities of watching 
the causes, symptoms, and progress of the navicular disease 
under all circumstances, over a hunting country, notorious for 
the destruction of horses by its hills and flints, viz., Surrey. I 
have also seen the ravages of the disease in army practice, and 
I know practically the proportion of wear and tear arising from 
it in post and coach establishments. Close observation and 
repeated dissections have thoroughly convinced me, that the 
navicular joint is more or less diseased in every chronic case of 
foot lameness, where no apparent cause exists for such lameness, 
except contraction. And as a large proportion of these cases of 
lameness exhibit contraction of the hoof or external foot, in a 
much less degree than hundreds of horses to be seen daily doing 
fast work on the hard road and in the field, highly fed and yet 
notoriously sound, or at least free from lameness (many of whose 
feet might be selected as choice specimens of contraction), it 
occurs to me that foot lameness is thereby still involved in some 
mystery, and that this classification or division of contraction into 
