SHOEING. 161 



I have more than once asserted my determi- 

 nation to interfere as little as possible with the 

 opinions or instructions of former writers, but 

 where it became unavoidably necessary to 

 establish an opposite opinion or corroborate 

 a fact. It is a matter of some surprize that 

 authors of eminence, who are naturally sup^ 

 posed to be *' armed at all points/' should be 

 so incautiously off their guard, a^ to contra- 

 dict themselves in the very act and emulation 

 of conveying tuition to others. I have given 

 a most strikins: instance of this error in mv 

 former volume, upon the inadvertency of Os- 

 MER, who repeatedly says with the greatest 

 confidence and seeming belief, '^ Tendons are 

 unelastic bodies ; and frequently in the same 

 Qr the very next page, tells you, '^ the tendon 

 was elongated!' I believe such assertion is 

 of a complexion too paradoxical to require 

 from me the most trifling elucidation. 



Passing over this privilege of authors with 

 no other remark than bare remembrance, I 

 come directly to the analyzation of as pal- 

 pable a professional contradiction broached 

 by La Fosse, and given to the public by 

 Bartlet, in the true spirit of implicit and 



VOL. II. M 



