business of shoeing, and knowing that the whole management of our horses, beginning with the foal to that of the oldest horse, is made to work in opposition to the laws of Nature, through the groundless ideas about this matter.

Nothing has tended so much to damage the most valuable of the breeds of English horses, rendering lasting animals scarce, and consequently costly, as the way their feet are managed, through the prevailing notions, alike inconsistent with fact and reason, regarding contraction. An imaginary evil has been created, and an indefinite number of equally imaginary measures, to subdue a myth, and in those measures lie the real evils.

I repeat that the rebounding spring in the horse's foot in action, is unattended with expansion, and I assert that there is no tendency in any part of the foot to contract.

Horses' feet imperfectly developed through want of right care, may be small, narrow, and upright, or broad, flat, and shallow, depending on the causes in operation, but no such influences as the notion of contraction conveys, are present. It is not a hair-splitting difference about a word or a mere shadow, but something real and demonstrable about which I am contending.

If we could dismiss from our minds the word 'contraction,' and all ideas of the inward pressure implied, and adopt instead, the word 'atrophy,' we should have a meaning given to almost all the deranged states of the foot of the horse, whether the cause be want of development, through perversion of natural influences, or whether it be the effect of misapplied art subsequently; atrophy, which means wasting or lack of nutrition, would indicate the true condition of the foot, and lead to inquiry after causes. There are many of the most common affections of horses' feet which have yet to be described, and which require the attention their nature demands. Atrophy is the word that clearly indicates these, whether speaking of a particular tissue, or several component parts of the same organ.

Before I bring to bear the proofs which anatomical details afford, I shall endeavour to show, by some other modes of exhibiting the subject, what does take place, dependent on different hygienic influences prevailing. It is not to the members of my profession alone that this subject must be addressed, but to breeders, owners, and managers of horses, who are required to co-operate with us in order that good effects may the more speedily result.

Where evidence abounds, it is difficult to select the facts and illustrations which are most likely to form the best foundation for argument.

In the first place, there is much which requires correcting in horse breeding, viz., in the management of young horse stock. That which is commonly set down to degeneracy in our breeds-want of stamina, and to hereditary diseases, is due to totally different causes. More and more artificial treatment, with less space and variety of ground to pasture on, forced growth, and hurrying into maturity, are amongst

the first causes of imperfectly developed feet. Keeping young horses on wet soft ground, on dung, or, in short, any other than firm welldrained land, or clean and dry paved boxes, constitutes the second series of common causes of weak feet, ill adapted for wear and trying exertion.

When young horses, treated more or less as indicated above, are put into use, they are equally unprepared to sustain their work, and the new artificial processes to which they become subjected. Hence, the art of shoeing, which is of itself a common cause of permanent injury, becomes doubly so, because it has to be applied to feet which have never become developed to anything like a normal standard of perfection.

There is a common saying in use, which tells us that in man a strong mind is only found in a sound body, and my own experience has informed me that, in horses, strong feet, wiry, well-formed limbs, and robust constitutions are generally found together; and, vice versa, a weak-footed horse is commonly a flat-sided, bad constitutioned animal.

The notion now abroad, founded on the assumption that the hoofs of horses grow and acquire form in moisture, is altogether erroneous. It may be laid down as a rule, not only that the horse requires a dry firm surface, but that every animal in creation which is endowed with hoofs, whether cloven or not, is destined to subsist on dry firm ground. It is unphilosophical to suppose that animals to which nature has given hoofs, in which case the bearing surface of the foot is always small in comparison with those animals which are destined to live on, or run over soft ground, should require that firm substance to be changed by uncongenial humidity, and never be allowed the comfort of a clean dry hoof.

To adduce comparisons in support of the above propositions would seem needless. We have no other animal to compare with the horse for power, speed, and size; but we may take, for illustration, the smaller animals endowed with hoofs, viz., the wild goat, the deer, and the wild boar. How compact, hard, and strong are their hoofs, and how small the space they cover on the ground compared to their enemy of prey, the wolf. The same argument holds good with other large and small animals endowed with hoofs. Concentration of strength forms the obvious feature in all. The ox, the giraffe, and every animal endowed with hoofs, require their feet to be dry as a rule, though they can endure temporary moisture exceptionally. The above is supported by all experience, and wherever good horses are bred, it is found that the soil is firm.

Horses' feet acquire perfection under an eastern sun, when all other conditions favour, viz., freedom for exercise on sound or rocky ground surface, with the requisite food production.

Of nothing in the character of the soil is the foot of the horse so intolerant as of perpetual wet; and next to excess of humidity, a soft indefinite yielding footing is subversive of its functions, such as

dung, soft peaty land, and even drifting sand. None of these soft surface beds constitute the naturally ordained stimulants to the horse's foot, or any of its component structures.

Fantastic notions prevail about the foot of the horse performing somewhat the office of a stamp, that it should leave its impression fully marked, that the convexities of the foot should be embedded into the ground, and the concavities be filled with the soil.

The above notion has led to horses being doomed to stand for hours daily in wet clay, wet sawdust, &c., and in many cases from October to March in a wet farm-yard.

That all the above processes of treating horses are destructive to their feet, only requires time to convince readers, I shall invite them to look at the other side of the picture. I have said that all animals endowed with hoofs, and especially the horse, the ass, and the whole equine family, are ordained to exert their useful parts on dry firm land, or hard rocky surfaces. The prominent parts of the foot's surface are alone essentially required to have contact with the ground, the concave surfaces do not invite pressure, any more than does the bottom arch of man's foot require to be filled and compressed at every step, or that a dog should bear equally on the prominent balls and the concavities of his foot.

I submit, as an axiom, that the prominent points only of the plantar region of the foot are destined to bear on the ground.

The beauty observable in the foot of the horse for its many wonderful properties, consists in its compact form, concentration of power, which is due to the perfection of its arched structure, and in the way the bearing is diffused from the centre of the arch above, and expended over a broad base. If people would reflect, when rowing under one of the arches of London Bridge, that the weight which is moving over it is borne safely, yet only let there be a flood of water to rise above the arch and cause an upward pressure, and the effect will be reversed. The horse cannot bear a snowball under his foot, nor is any padding salutary to the sole; hence the bad custom of cutting away the natural sole of his foot, and then applying a leather, felt, or gutta-percha one, and stuffing in between it and the mutilated foot a wadding of tow, tar, and grease.

The form of the foot of the horse, given by Coleman as the standard of perfection, was such as would be nearest approached in a horse bred on the flat muddy banks of a river, where nature would flatten out the foot of the animal as broad as long, to prevent him from sinking; in that case the hoof, the pedal bone, and plantar structures would all be flattened out. A horse so reared would be able to waddle along with a little less speed than a man could run. I advise breeders of horses, of all descriptions, if any thing besides mere bulk in the animal is wanted, to breed on dry ground, and let all other essentials be added. Gentleman who breed for the turf, who are not aware of these facts, will do well to observe them. If a company of breeders were to take Stockwell, with all the Touchstone

and Voltigeur mares, and place the latter, and in due time their produce, where their feet would be immersed in wet for six hours daily, they would never breed a Derby colt or an Oaks filly, however well feeding and shelter might be arranged; the condition of the feet alone, in the state supposed, would preclude the possibility of great speed, and more especially of durability under exertion. I have known good tried stallions, whose stock, produced in a generally good breeding district, were on an average very good, which, when the same horses have been transferred to a locality where their produce was reared on wet, undrained land, were found on trial to be worthless.

The late Mr Bracy Clark rendered valuable service to veterinary science when he opposed the then-established doctrine which defined the shape of the horse's hoof to be that of a cone, whilst Clark himself said that its true form was that of a cylinder.

Without committing myself to a statement, that the form of the hoof corresponds exactly to that geometrical figure, I find that Clark's description is practically correct and good, the greatest strength and capacity is presented by a cylindrical form, the arched sustaining powers are compatible with hoofs so shaped. Whereas, with the conical form, these essential conditions would be incompatible. In my anatomical description of the hoof, and on various occasions in my writings, I have stated that the sole regulates the form of the foot, and when that structure is from any cause weakened, it loses the power of supporting the pedal bone, and of keeping the wall in a normal form; hence, in breeding, a soft soil is a common cause of flat and weak feet, the arch in the sole is wanting, and the coffin bone also flattens, when the leverage forces are diminished owing to disadvantageous attachment of tendons and ligaments. Again, a wet soft footing in a farm-yard leads to wasting away, viz., to atrophy of the frog and plantar structures, in which case the soft sole may, through the same want of power to retain form, bend upwards, and so alteration of the foot becomes general in conformity, not by contraction as is said by writers, who contend "that the hoof of living horses when exposed to the atmosphere and the sun's rays, shrinks like the hoof detached after death, or like a deal board exposed to the same influences."*

It is not through atmospheric or other natural influences with us that horses' feet suffer, but through excess of moisture, and consequent lack of natural stimulus, hence the cause of atrophy, more or less general, of the foot.

Diminished capacity in the foot is compatible with an undue widening of the whole structure at its bottom surface, and weakness, if not immediate lameness, results with such form and conditions.

The sole of a foot, when almost flat in the young horse, will, through the disadvantageous form acquired, be ill-adapted to retain

* See Essay, by Professor LA FOSSE of Toulouse, published in the Veterinary Journal du Midi, for May 1859, entitled "Observations on Contraction," &c.

that form, but one less favourable, viz., a convexity of sole, commonly succeeds as the effect of weakness, and incapacity to sustain its burden. In this latter condition, the foot, which in the colt was wide below and little arched, diminishes in depth and also in circumference round the coronet; and we have a shallow, wasted, weak foot, the coffin-bone of which, when examined after death (the course of procedure by which these views have been arrived at), that bone will be found in form like the hoof, its depth diminished by absorption, which takes place upon its bottom circumference and surface. Such a foot is in a state of atrophy in all its parts, from the bony structure within, to the hoof exteriorly.

The accompanying illustrations will help the reader, it is hoped, to comprehend the subject.

Fig. 1 represents the two chief component parts of the hoof, the wall and sole, the frog having been removed, as it always can be, by long maceration in water.

The sole is thickest at, and is strongly connected anteriorly, and in its two posterior terminations, where it is so strongly invested by the inflexions of the wall, as to be incapable of direct dislocation by any means, whilst the parts remain in their integrity, viz., not cut away or weakened. The inflected wall, which, according to prevailing notions, is called 'the bars,' constitutes for all essential purposes an inner wall, a continuation of the outer wall; these inner inflexions have no such abrupt terminations as their outer appearance at first sight indicates, or as seems to be the case by the laminated attaching inner surface; the same inflected wall forms the inner boundary of the two lateral divisions of the sole posteriorly; and