698 
LAMINITIS AND NAVICULAR DISEASE. 
upon it when the foot is on the ground from this change of 
situation, and absorption of its most prominent inferior mar¬ 
gins; nature evidently removing what is a cause of violent 
pain. 
We have now the same condition of parts resulting from 
acute laminitis, or more accurately peditis, as we find to be 
present in the second form, viz., chronic laminitis, or peditis, 
or that resulting from a gradual alteration of the feet without 
at first severe lameness. The feet become gradually flat- 
soled, slightly convex, increase of convexity, and appearance 
of decided and generally incurable lameness, or, as you 
describe in your excellent letter, “ this tendency has been 
gradually assuming a condition more and more favorable to 
lameness for some time before actual lameness has shown 
itself.” I agree with you in this matter of everyday obser¬ 
vation, but when you go on and state “ that the economy 
and condition of the bony structures have been undergoing 
a certain change, and that in the absence of any active inflam¬ 
mation, a sort of atrophy,” I am at issue with you, and think 
you are not using a correct term when you call it mollifies 
ossiuin. In order to arrive at correct ideas we must inquire 
what are the causes leading on to this state of parts, and 
what kind of animal is the most subject. The most prominent 
causes are, weakening of the hoof by undue paring, or by 
rasping of its wall; standing for a long time idle in the 
stable often is a cause of non-secretion of horn; thus the feet 
become weak, and do not afford sufficient support to the 
weight of the animal. As to what breed of horse is most 
liable, I must say that although I have found it in Welsh 
ponies that had never been worked, and in animals of all 
breeds, the heavy Lincolnshire dray-horse, with naturally 
broad flat feet, is most subject; but generally, in whatever 
kind of animal it has existed that I have observed, it is asso¬ 
ciated with a very obese condition; the horses have been 
loaded with fat. In the case of Welsh ponies, they were 
actually one mass of fat, and when this condition was taken 
away, the feet more or less regained their pristine form, and 
they became serviceable. Now, after careful observation, 
seeing this state generally present, and the absence of other 
causes, I can arrive at no other conclusion than that the 
alteration of the feet is simply due to the great weight they 
have to bear (there is another class of horse very liable, 
viz., the animal that has been bred for harness or saddle pur¬ 
poses, and has become too heavy for his breeding—here the 
feet often give way); this great weight, not, as you suppose, 
causing direct alteration of the bony structure, but a gradual 
