DISEASES OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 187 



knowledge questioned, said, '-I don't ask any man in the witness 

 box to beg m}' pardon ; I am quite a horseman myself and a lover 

 of the noble animal, and have studied it a good deal, and I therefore 

 repeat, defying contradiction, that my knee corresponds to a horse's 

 forward knee." Every eye was upon me for a moment, and I 

 stepped forward a little dramatically and said, "I beg your pardon, 

 your honor's knee is on your leg, and if 3'ou have any limbs that 

 correspond to a horse's fore legs they must be your arms." I left 

 the Judge in his cold consolation and went on with the statement, 

 but he didn't interfere again. A similar case occurred in Missouri 

 with a Professor of Surgery. He had a lame colt under treatment 

 belonging to President Laws of the State University, and Professor 

 McAllister called mv attention to the case, and I found that the for- 

 ward knee had been injured. While talking freely about the knee 

 and putting his hand on his own knee, I said, to use the language of 

 the plumber, "The thing you are talking about and the thing you are 

 thinking about, are two different things altogether." Said I, "Do 

 3'ou understand that your knee corresponds to the knee you are treat- 

 ing in the colt?" "Why, of course," said he. Said I, "That knee 

 that you have hold of on your leg is not a forward knee, is it?" The 

 doctor saw the point instantly, and said that was too good to keep, 

 and he wanted to sell the President in the same wav. So he called 

 the President there, and said, "Dr. Cressey has taken some exception 

 to my notion that this joint corresponds to our knee." "Strange,'* 

 saj's the President, "I guess we shall not have to be corrected on 

 that; he must be joking." I said, "No, Dr. Laws, I am not;'' 

 when he said, "It cannot be otherwise." Said I, "Do 3'ou mean to 

 say that you are satisfied that the colt's lame knee corresponds to 

 3-our knee ?" Dr. McAllister took it out of my hands, as he wanted 

 to play the joke himself, and said, "Our knee is on our hind leg," 

 and the President, being convinced, said, "What a set of fools we are, 

 we don't even know the comparative relations of man and animals." 

 Said I, "If we should put ourselves in the position of a horse we 

 would have our arms as forward legs ; our legs would then be hind 

 legs ; our knees would be stifles ; our ankles would be hock-joints, 

 and if the horse should go as we do he would put his hock on the 

 ground, making a foot eighteen inches long ; while, if we should walk 

 as a horse does, we should step on the end of one toe, the nail being 

 the hoof." 



13 



