264: THE PERFECT HORSE. 



of the horse's body, yields at each step, and returns 

 again to its original form. The tendon is never in a 

 state of distraction : its fibres are no longer suceptible 

 of violent distention during a sudden movement. I 

 will go so far as to assert that rupture of the tendon 

 will never occur on a flat pavement : if it does, it will 

 be in the space between two paving-stones. Two 

 things clearly follow from what I have said, — that it 

 may happen that the tendon Achilles sustains all the 

 different degrees of violence that can be imagined, from 

 total rupture to the smallest abrasion of its fibres, which 

 will cause the horse to go lame ; and it is on the frog 

 alone that all these different degrees depend, as has 

 been demonstrated more particularly in the history of 

 fracture of the navicular bone and the anatomy of 

 the foot. My new shoeing, I repeat, has nothing to 

 oppose it but prejudice. Anatomy, which has made 

 known to me the structure of the foot, has demonstrated 

 all its. advantages, and experience has fully confirmed 

 them." 



Fleming, who quotes essentially the same as the fore- 

 going, well says, at the conclusion of the quotation, — 



" I regret extremely that our limits forbid my trans- 

 lating at greater length from this splendid monograph ; 

 but I hope that I have been able, to some extent, to 

 show that Lafosse's ideas on shoeing were founded on 

 sound anatomical and physiological principles, the result 

 of close observation and experience. And yet they ap- 

 pear to have made but little progress in the face of the 



