LAMINITIS AND NAVICULAR DISEASE. 575 
tendency to the formation of bone-spavin, side-bones, ring¬ 
bones, splint, &c. 
You may possibly insist that bony structures are entirely 
and altogether different, and are not liable to the same laws 
in the animal economy as the soft tissues. To such objec¬ 
tion I reply that we have no right to assume such to be the 
case. I believe bony structures are liable to morbid affec¬ 
tions equally with other tissues. Is not each organ in itself—• 
in fact, every tissue in the whole body, unless defectively 
formed in the womb—exquisitely and perfectly adapted for 
the duty or function it has to perform? Both hard and soft 
tissues are, v 7 hen in health, perfect in themselves; the one 
not more so than the other. Each is equally subject to 
decay and reparation; and whenever normal action is per¬ 
verted, or nature is overtaxed, the delicately fine, natural 
susceptibilities are acted upon and interfered with in the one 
case as in the other. Nature suffers; her functions and 
actions are thwarted; reproduction is retarded, and after a 
w 7 hile that organ, whichever it may be, becomes unequal to 
the task, and the result is lameness if it happens to be in the 
plantar organ, or imbecility if it happens to be in the brain. 
In both cases, properly speaking, it is the language of pain, 
or the silent expression of nature's vigilance. 
Again. We see that one horse becomes affected with 
laminitis without his feet having been subjected to much, if 
any, stress or exertion; whilst another is worked most un¬ 
mercifully, and his feet neglected in every imaginable v 7 ay, 
without laminitis supervening. How^ is this? It is simply 
attributable to the difference of constitutional tendency or 
condition of the bones. I would here remark that it is, 
generally speaking, the low T «stepper, the shuffling goer, that 
is the victim of laminitis. I feel convinced in my own mind 
that this disease dates its real commencement in most, if not 
in all, cases, long antecedent to the time usually ascribed to 
it; and I am satisfied, from many post-mortem investigations, 
that we frequently have cases that would be called by all 
experienced and practical men laminitis where the laminae 
are not, nor ever have been at any antecedent date, actually 
inflamed, but where the internal structure of the coffin bone 
has been for some time undergoing a change— a mollities.” 
You may possibly advance, as an argument to strengthen 
your view r , the fact of the augmented thickness of horn from 
the commencement of active disease; but this, to my mind, 
is not conclusive evidence. It may demonstrate by contrast 
a previous unnatural, thin, attenuated growth of horn. 
