MEMBRANES. THE HORSE'S INSIDE. ORGANS. yj 



According to the parts this membrane may cover, it has received from the 

 iRdrned in hard words and many, a separate name for each, as it that course 

 would further the cause of science; and whenever they speak of it as being 

 found upon the joints, and skull, or the bones generally, they term it perichon- 

 drium, pericranium, and periosteum, as the case may be : why, no one ex- 

 plains. It has been considered insensible, because in health it has not < le 

 sense of feeling so fine as other parts of the system, which are furnished witf 

 more nerves (s. 30) ; but, the very few of these fine organs with which the 

 membrane of the bone is furnished, renders the pain occasioned by disease, 

 whenever it may be attacked, the more acute ; when flying from one n«rve to 

 another, those well-known shooting pains are felt (by us) that are universally 

 mistaken for pains in the bones themselves. We do not go too far in infer- 

 ring that the horse is similarly affected. This takes place in splents and spavin, 

 when the bone enlarging forces its way through this tightly-braced membrane, 

 and causes inflammation, temporary lameness, and, at length, those well- 

 known appearances 1 have just named. In the living horse this membrane is 

 red, by reason of the fine blood-vessels with which it abounds ; but in the dead 

 subject, the supply of blood being withdrawn, it then turns white. 



CHAPTER II. 



Concerning the Horse's Inside, of its Conformation^ the Functions of the 

 Organs of Life, and the Diseases to which each is liable : together with 

 Outlines of the Principles upon which the Cure is to be effected. 



18. Such, as I have endeavoured to teach, being my view of the external 

 frame or structure of the horse, which I have termed its built, 1 come, in the 

 next place, to speak in a more particular manner of his inside; noticing, as I 

 pass on from one part of him to another, the seats and causes of his diseases 

 with a view to their cure, but referring you to the second book for the separate 

 treatment each requires. In the third chapter will be found my reasons for fol- 

 lowing up the principles herein laid down, by a line of practice, at variance, in 

 some material points, with the present mode of treating the animal in health 

 as well as in disease. 



Organs. — But, before I proceed to describe those several part? of the horse's 

 inside, there appears to me an absolute necessity for previously makinir the 

 unlearned reader better acquainted with a few general topics, that we°may 

 proceed with the details smoothly and more intelligibly together ; viz. the 

 names, uses or offices and powers, of that infinity of small organs which lie 

 spread over most parts of the body, and belong in common to several of these 

 parts in nearly equal degrees. The large organs, having the power of carry- 

 ing on the animal system, first, as regards digestion, secondly, those employed 

 in the circulation of the blood, and third, those of respiration, are too well 

 known to the sight and touch to require explanation here; yet are they (the 

 heart, kidneys, lungs, liver, &,c.) composed or made up entirely of those minor 

 organs 1 mean first to describe. But the precise way in which these act in 

 and upon the large ones, the great share they hold in furthei».ig the system of 

 animal life, and the eminent rank their services maintain in restoring health 

 when the system is any way disordered, has not received, in the practice of 

 horse-medicine, that share of serious consideration the importance of the sub- 

 ject imperiously demands. To these points, then. 1 shall shortly call the 

 -eader's undivided attention ; meantime, as some cramp words and phrases an' 

 4 



