AS TO SOUNDNESS, 41 



LECTURE VI. 



The Fore Foot — Only a Part of a Whole — Its Relation to the Fore 

 Leg — When the Horse is Awake — When Asleep — Not so much 

 Weight on it when Awake as when the Horse Sleeps Standing 

 — The Fore Legs have Efficient Mainstays, except at the 

 Navicular Joint — The Navicular Joint very Defective — The 

 Relation between the Phalanges and the Column of Bones 

 above — Importance of the Line of the Coronary Band being 

 always Noted — Its Tendency to become Horizontal — Long 

 Pasterns, Low Heels, and Long I'oes — A Good Foot and 

 Pastern — A Boxy Foot — Shoeing Blamed for every Ailment 

 of the Foot — Shoe Inventions — The Charlier Shoe. 



Gentlemen, — We have now come to the most im- 

 portant part of the examination, namely, the fore foot. 

 Although there are no end of treatises on this subject, 

 I shall be obliged to describe the mechanism exhibited 

 here, because authors take a view of the subject which 

 I consider to be radically wrong — all seeming alike to 

 regard the horse's foot as a thing J)er se and not, as 

 really is the case, as only a part of a whole. You cannot 

 understand numerous causes of the diseases of the foot 

 by looking upon it as a whole. Of course you may say 

 that it is only a part of the body technically, but, prac- 



