FRUSH. 431 



has so ordained in this, as in all other organised bodies, that, 

 unless those purposes be fully carried out, it cannot maintain its 

 original state of development. Diminished function entails di- 

 minished form ; the same volume of structure is found no longer 

 to be required; the body falls away under the decrease of demand 

 upon it; and in the end becomes " beautifully less," or else 

 actually diseased. The late Professor Coleman's mind was fully 

 alive to all this. He argued, that the frog, being made to bear 

 pressure, must receive it, or fall into a state of degeneracy and 

 disease, pressure to the frog being a means of counteracting con- 

 traction. The most convincing and satisfactory proof we can 

 have of the salutariness of pressure to the frog, is the state of 

 the organ in those feet in which it has been exposed to pres- 

 sure from tread upon the ground, contrasted with its condition 

 in feet in which it has been removed out of the way of pressure. 

 In the one case, the frog is bold and prominent and sound ; 

 in the other, shrunk and shrivelled and frushy. But some- 

 thing besides pressure is wanting to preserve the full normal 

 state of the organ, as is shewn by the frog in the natural or 

 unshod foot, as compared with the frog of the foot that has 

 been for some years shod, albeit upon the best of principles. 

 The latter may have been all along maintained in a state of 

 soundness, and yet it will not bear comparison with the former. 

 This does not arise from lack of pressure to the frog, but from 

 habitual constriction of the shoe upon the foot. Perhaps nothing 

 more strikingly evinces the truth of this than the wearing of 

 tips. With the heels left, as they are in tips, at liberty, at the 

 same time that pressure is given to the frog to the uttermost, 

 the organ is not only maintained full and perfect, but may, by 

 such means, even after its degeneracy, be restored to its original 

 normal condition of expansion. Light blood horses, with feet 

 rather oval than circular, and that go near the ground, are most 

 prone to contraction and frush. And when the frogs — of such 

 horses especially — are pared away, as they are too apt injuriously 

 to be by the smith, contraction both of frog and foot goes on with 

 redoubled force, in consequence of the counter-operation of that 

 body being entirely annihilated. Leaving the heels high when 



