9tS The Management and Treatment of the Horse, 



down on to the tendon beneath it, which in its turn 

 reposes on the frog; and lastly that the coffin-bone is 

 slung by elastic medium bands to the inner surface of 

 the wall of the hoof; that these bands (the lamina?) 

 allow by their stretching properties for the hones to 

 descend, to admit of which the sole of the hoof must be 

 cut away and otherwise weakened to avoid obstruction. 

 Can any rational man believe that this is the material to 

 harbour in men's brains as a foundation to build a 

 superstructure of any kind, either of normal actions 

 or diseased conditions ? No ; the anatomy of the loot 

 must be understood, from phenomena we must arrive 

 at systems, and then we may learn pathology. 

 Knowledge of healthy actions first, then altered states, 

 diseases, causes, and sequences may be understood, 

 hence the necessity of a class in the Royal Veterinary 

 College, where the aspirant groom and smith could 

 study and pass an examination in the anatomical 

 structures of the horse, the foot in particular. 



Such a class would go further towards a rational 

 mode of shoeing being adopted than all the abusive 

 works upon the groom and blacksmith ever written. 

 Teach the blacksmith and groom first, then if they do 

 wrong blame them, but do not blame a man for his 

 ignorance if you do not try and teach him. It is easy 

 to call a man a fool, but, as daft Will Perkins, of 

 Melton Mowbray, once said, what God left out no man 

 can put in ; and depend upon it that those writers who 

 are ever ready to call all grooms and smiths fools, only 

 do so from being so familiar with their own names. . . 

 . . As I have said, bad shoeing: and bad management 



