38 SCIENTIFIC HORSESHOEING. 



CHAPTER III. 

 THE FOOT OF THE HORSE. 



LOCOMOTORY APPARATUS. 



The Subject Defined, — The object of this chapter is to 

 pass in concise review, the organs or apparatus controlling or 

 ministering to the function of locomotion in the horse, certainly 

 one of the most important in the economy of the animal, by the 

 necessary co-operation it affords the other organs and appara- 

 tuses in the performance of their natural properties and func- 

 tions, and similarly one of primary importance in approach- 

 ing the study of its conditions in health and disease. For 

 these reasons, then, a clear understanding of the foot in general 

 is absolutely essential to every horseman and farrier, if they 

 would profit by its harmonious action and acquire practical 

 working ideas of the relation of its parts and the mode of their 

 co-operation, to be remembered, applied and utilized. 



Motion in General. — The locomotory apparatus is com- 

 posed of two kinds or systems of organs — the bones and mus- 

 cles. The bones are the hard, passive portions, with joints and 

 movable articulating surfaces providing for the necessary play 

 in their relative positions. The muscles, grouped around the 

 bones, are the active portions of the movement — the motor 

 engines of the limbs, in fact — being firmly attached to the bones 

 at certain determinate points, either directly or by tendons, 

 which contract upon the organs to be moved, and produce the 

 different postures and various gaits of the living animal. 



