ON THE FOOT i39 



without appropriating to it some useful function ; 

 but, on a nicer examination of the foot of a horse 

 than that which a hving subject presents us with, 

 it is very evident that the heels, and not the frog, 

 form the first natural bearing for his weight ; and, 

 in a state of nature, the latter will not touch the ground 

 on a level and hard surface until the crust of the former 

 is worn down, as I have a hundred times witnessed 

 in colts which have travelled a long distance bare- 

 footed. Add to this, that however well adapted the 

 frog may be to act by second causes, and also to prevent 

 injury to the parts beneath it, yet (speaking plainly), 

 from the stuff it is made of, so highly elastic — when 

 considered as a preventive of contraction — its powers 

 of opposing horn and iron must be very feeble indeed. 



As I shall, hereafter, offer some remarks on pre- 

 paring the foot for the shoe, in which attention to 

 the frog and its properties will not be overlooked, I 

 shall now proceed to the important discovery to which 

 I alluded in my last, relating to the nature and seat 

 of the disease called " founder, or groggy lameness " 

 — a discovery which has hitherto never been noticed 

 by veterinar}^ writers, with the exception of one or 

 two have who lately touched upon it. The reader will 

 observe that it is a disease strictly confined to the 

 forefeet ; so that the last-mentioned organ, the frog, 

 can have no peculiar relation to it, as that organ 

 exercises its functions equally in all the feet. 



Now the following is the manner in which I stumbled 

 upon this (to me) new light in the veterinary horizon, 

 in which I am much inclined to think there is still 



