54 EXAMINATION OF HORSES 



tion the remaining part of the phalanx. We usually com- 

 pare one foot with its fellow, but there are times when we 

 have to ask ourselves the question, Are these feet as large 

 as feet usually are belonging to horses of this size and 

 class? or, on the other hand, we may have to regard them 

 as too large. Now, when feet are of equal size, and are 

 free from disease, but are larger in proportion to the 

 body than common, you may regard it as of no conse- 

 quence. So far as you are concerned, as it is neither an 

 unsoundness nor does it of itself lead in any particular 

 way to unsoundness ; but it is very different when they 

 are too small, that is, small out of proportion to the body. 

 They may be perfectly sound, but you will not so readily 

 satisfy yourselves on this point as on the last. You know 

 that when a part is inflamed, nutrition, and therefore 

 growth, is arrested. Now the foot of the horse, as also 

 the entire body, enlarges by growth up to the fifth year, 

 or more in many cases, and it comes to be a question 

 whether small feet have not, during the period of their 

 growth, suffered from inflammation in some degree. 

 Inflammation would necessarily be of a mild form that 

 would leave the foot without further evidences than those 

 of arrested growth. If it had been present in a mild 

 form it must have been of considerable duration, because 

 after recovery from a mild attack a growing part resumes 

 its growth. I have before told you that a part once 

 acutely inflamed is "never itself again," and that there 

 is no cause of inflammation nearly so potent as a previous 

 inflammaticn. When inflammation'has attacked the foot 



