FOOT OF THE MORSE. 
4o< 
lateral pressure upon it, and then physicking, and bleeding from 
the inside toe until the pulse falters, and the animal almost faints ; 
and, five or six days after that,bleeding, and to the same extent, from 
the opposite toe, Mr. Turner, in his first paper, recommends 
that in the intermediate time, “ on the third or fourth day, the 
horse should commence walking exercise on litter or a dry 
surface.” 
In this improved work, the sentence stands thus : u About the 
fourth or fifth day, he may be walked out upon some litter for 
about twenty minutes, and about the sixth or seventh day the 
lr • 
bloodletting is to be repeated.”—p. 28. This is a “ bit by bit ” 
concession and reform, which we hardly expected from the honest 
straightforward discoverer of the navicular joint lameness. The 
truth of the matter is, Mr. Turner begins to suspect that, as he 
was told in the Veterinary Medical Society, “ to bleed at the toe 
to abate inflammation, and then to give walking exercise which 
will renew the inflammation, and then to bleed again to take 
away the inflammation, is not quite scientific practice and in a 
new edition (and the w r ork deserves it, and will soon reach it) we 
shall hear no more of this blowing hot and cold, nor of the strange 
shortening of the toe, and lowering of the heel, at so early a 
period of the curative treatment, and perhaps not at all. 
When the grand principles which Mr. Turner advocates are 
generally admitted—when the folly of exposing this complicated 
joint and sensitive membrane to sudden and rude concussion is 
acknowledged; after unnatural confinement in the stable has 
given rigidity to the parts beneath, and rendered the bruising and 
inflammation of the synovial membrane a thing of course—or 
when it is understood among practitioners, how general contrac¬ 
tion of the foot may take place to a great extent with impunity, 
while partial contraction or lateral pressure on the navicular 
joint cannot for a moment be borne—when, in point of fact, the 
essence of the thing is comprehended, that the cause of navi¬ 
cular lameness is a bruise and inflammation of the synovial mem¬ 
brane, from the rigidity of the parts below—we shall cease to 
quarrel about things which do not bear upon the grand point: 
and, perhaps, Mr. Turner will not be so tenacious with regard to 
certain alterations of the foot—elevation—displacement of the 
vol. v. 3 Q 
