In the Stable, Field, and on the Roadj. 87 



stumbling-stones it has been his lot to fall over. No 

 man, whatever may be his pursuits, deserves the name 

 of a practical man whose knowledge and resources are 

 limited by the experience of his predecessors in a similar 

 walk of life, or who cannot and dare not experiment or 

 reason for himself. 



Whatever theories I may advance from time to time, 

 they are confined strictly to facts, and are the result of 

 practical experiment by myself or others, whose names I 

 give. In all professions, and in none more so than in the 

 practice of medicine, novel events, remarkable phases, 

 and rare combinations are continually presenting them- 

 selves, which can only be understood and successfully 

 encountered by the aid of general principles. Thence the 

 need that every groom who aspires to be a successful man 

 should have a knowledge of pathology and therapeutics, 

 which supply the general knowledge to guide him in 

 treating disease or complications which he has not 

 previously experienced. From the peculiar situation of 

 the sensitive laminoe, and their being so highly vascular 

 and abundant in nervous texture, the disease called 

 laminitis, which has its seat in the reticular tissue that 

 envelopes the coffin-bone, consists, I conceive, primarily 

 in a congestion of the blood, which is soon followed 

 with intense inflammation ; the laminae being situated 

 between two hard substances, viz., the coffin-bone 

 and the hoof, high congestive inflammation is readily 

 produced, and the most violent pain and severe results 

 are the consequence when inflammation ensues. Mr 

 Percival in his " Hippopathology " has written largely 

 upon this disease, as has also Mr Wilson, of Bradford, 



