814 
LAMINITIS AND NAVICULAR DISEASE. 
well-marked symptoms, are all points of the greatest interest, 
and worthy the consideration both of the pathological anato¬ 
mist and the practitioner. Although my remarks are brief, 
and do not set forth all which I recognised in my investigation, 
they may nevertheless tend to excite a desire to examine 
more closely these and similar cases which may come under 
the notice of the veterinary practitioner. 
LAMINITIS AND NAVICULAR DISEASE.—REPLY 
TO MR. WILLIAMS. 
Ry T. Greaves, M.R.C.V.S., Manchester, President of the 
Lancashire Veterinary Medical Association. 
October 8th, 1864. 
Dear Sir,— -If there be one condition which more than any 
other makes controversy interesting and instructive, it is the 
conducting it in an enlightened manner, and with*an absence 
of all desire to gain a victory at the expense of principle; I 
think I can discern this spirit throughout your able reply. The 
question upon which we still entertain different opinions is 
principally the nature of these diseases ; you deny the heredi¬ 
tary taint, whilst I still maintain it; and, with a view to 
establish my opinion, I beg to offer a few additional argu¬ 
ments. I do this because I could as soon doubt the exist¬ 
ence of insanity in a family in which various members have 
been known to be idiotic or lunatics, or of scrofula or con¬ 
sumption in families of which various members have fallen 
victims to its certain and fatal influence ; therefore, for the 
purpose of arriving at correct data, let us endeavour to divest 
the question of everything that may have the semblance of 
fallacy. I am not going to say it is a very easy matter to 
refute this view of yours, but I do think it is not based upon 
sound physiologicalconclusions,and I will tell you why I think 
so, and in doing this I could wish that I possessed more ability 
and perspicuity to enable me to express myself more tersely 
and more forcibly than I amable,for it is in this particular where 
the pith or gist of the whole argument exists-—it is here where 
the principle is involved. You say all these diseases result 
from extraneous causes, and are wholly independent of here¬ 
ditary predisposition; whilst I say it is true some few of these 
cases do result from excessive violence done to the foot, but 
that in by far the majority of them they are constitutional. 
