ON THE FOOT 147 



more on the toe than on the heel. This would not 

 be the case were the lameness produced by pressure 

 on the cartilages, as then the impression would be 

 general. 



When some of my acquaintance, who may be said 

 to have been great footmen as well as great horsemen 

 all their lives, come to read what I have now written, 

 they will, I think, be convinced that they have had 

 a good deal of their trouble for nothing — not but what 

 I highly appreciate the value of an open and wide 

 foot in a hunter, in keeping him above ground over a 

 deep country, as I would draw out manure on tender 

 land in a broad and not a narrow-wheel cart ; but I 

 allude to those whose anxiety has been so great to 

 preserve open feet as a preventive of disease. To one 

 friend of mine this particularly applies. He had a 

 very valuable gig horse, which he never drove in the 

 winter, because he said he had such narrow feet that 

 he would certainly be a cripple, unless he passed the 

 winter months in screw shoes, by means of which, 

 I admit, his feet did appear to be somewhat wider 

 at the heels when he came up in the spring, though 

 they soon resumed their old shape. These narrow 

 feet, however, never failed him, for the navicular bone 

 was sound. 



Now I have no doubt but this was the disease 

 which " the ancients " termed " cofhn lameness." 

 As most of them are, fortunately (for horses), now in 

 their own coffins, it is no harm to say that they could 

 not have given a much stronger proof of their ignor- 

 ance ; for, from the oblique direction of that bone. 



