100 



CONFORMATION AND ITS DEFECTS 



especially by French liippotomists, and it is to the founder of veterinary 

 schools we owe the first serious attempt to " establish the relation of the 

 dimension which should exist between the parts of the body ", or, in other 

 words, a law of proportion. As a result of numerous measurements, Bourgelat 

 selected the head as a basis of proportion for all other parts, and the more 



ni 



Fig. 73.— Proportions of the Horse in Profile 

 From Gouhaux and Barrier. (By permission of Messrs. Lippincott) 



recent researches of the distinguished savant Colonel Duhousset led him 

 also to adopt this region as a unit of measure. 



The results of his observations are recorded by Goubaux and Barrier, 

 from whose able work on the Exterior of the Horse we extract the follow- 

 ing list of proportions : — 



The length of the head almost exactly equals the distance — 



1st. From the Ixick to the abdomen, N o, fig. 73 (thickness of the body). 



■2nd. From the top of the withers to the point of the arm, H E (shoulder). 



3rd. From the superior fold of the stifle-joint to the point of the hock, j' J. 



4th. From the point of the hock to the ground, J K. 



.5th. From the dorsal angle of the scapula to the point of the haunch, d' D. 



6th. From the xiphoid region to the fetlock-joint M I ; above this latter in large horses 

 and race-horses, below it in small horses, and in tliose of medium size. 



7th. From the superior fold of the stifle-joint to the summit of the croup in subjects 

 whose coxo-femoral angle is large: this distance is always less in other cases (G. & B.). 



