VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
297 
Cross-examined—Navicular disease gives pain and causes pointing-. 
Mr. Norris —Can there be navicular disease without inflammation of 
the synovial membrane? 
Mr. Aubrey —Professor Spooner, of the Royal Veterinary College, 
says there may be. He gives it as his opinion that the disease may 
commence in the structure of the bone. If a horse affected with navicular 
disease in both feet were sold to an unprofessional person, it might go 
on for some time without his detecting it, particularly if the animal 
were not subjected to severe exertion. An experienced person would 
at once detect it—there would be something remarkable in its action: 
it would step short and stumpy. 
Mr. Norris —How long has ossification existed in this mare ? 
Mr. Aubrey —In my opinion, for some months before its sale to Mr. 
Hussey. 
Mr. Norris — Have you ever found ossification complete in a very short 
period ? 
Mr. Aubrey —No. Ossification is a very different thing from the de¬ 
position of bone on bone. In the latter case an enlargement is thrown 
out, which to an unscientific person appears to be bone in five or six 
weeks, and may be cut with a knife. Still it is not bone, although it will 
ultimately become converted into bone. Exostosis is only a growth of 
bone on bone ; ossification is the transformation of cartilage into bone. 
I never knew cartilage transformed into bone within a month. It is 
impossible for a broken bone to unite within a month or six weeks. That 
which forms the union is not bone then. 
Mr. W. C. Spooner , of Southampton, author of a well-known work on 
the horse, was next called. He said, I have heard the evidence of Mr. 
Truckle and Mr. Aubrey, and mainly coincide in their opinions. If I 
had been called in to see a lame horse, and found it pointing, I should 
be led to infer that it was suffering from navicular disease. Pointing is 
a symptom of that disease. 
Mr. Sieayne —May a horse have navicular disease, and yet, with mo¬ 
derate use, and go lame ? 
Mr Spooner. —Certainly. Frequently such lameness is not noticed 
bv an ordinarv observer. I know the work of Mr. Percivall. He has a 
a/ 
very good reputation. He gives a very good account of the symptoms 
of navicular disease, when he says: “ Were a person a hundred miles 
off to write a letter to a veterinary surgeon, saying, ‘My horse goes 
lame, and I can discover no cause or semblance of cause whatever for 
the lameness; there is nothing particular to be observed in his action to 
lead to a belief that it is shoulder lameness ; once or twice he has through 
repose become sound again, though lameness has not failed to relapse 
every time he has been returned to work again; and in the stable, and 
often out of the stable, the horse points his lame foot/ I say, were a 
person to write thus concerning his lame horse, any veterinary surgeon 
to whom he wrote might, in his own mind, without any great apprehen¬ 
sion of being mistaken, set the case down as navicularthritis.” 
Mr. Swayne —With regard to ossification of the lateral cartilage—is 
that a quick or a slow process? 
Mr. Spooner —Slow. 
Mr. Swayne— Is a horse sound that has navicular disease? 
Mr. Spooner —Certainly not. Any alteration in the structure of a 
horse that interferes, or is likely to interfere, with its utility, is un¬ 
soundness. Ossification of the lateral cartilage would interfere with its 
utility. 
Mr. Swayne —My learned friend wouldn’t let you see the mare this 
morning, would he ? 
XXXII. 
40 
