46 



ANATOMICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



THE HIND QUARTER OF A HORSE, FROM 

 ■WHICH THE SKIN HAS BEEN REMOVED. 



Hi mg creature is hardly lost — certainly it is not entirely destroyed — and 

 the author is acquainted with no other body which could equally endure 

 so harsh a test. 



The inferior bones of the subjoined sketch lead to the foot; but as the 



osseous structure of this part was illus- 

 trated in a previous sketch, and as the 

 fore and hind feet of the horse are in the 

 leading particulars alike, the author will 

 not fill valuable space by unnecessary 

 repetition. However, the hind foot of 

 the horse being the point whence all the 

 strain of propulsion must proceed, the 

 part, from such a cause alone, will be 

 liable to certain distortions. The evils 

 engendered by the cruel impatience of 

 mankind, which forces the colt into too 

 early labor, causes the natural position 

 of tlie member to become altered. The 

 pastern bones grow to be erect, and, 

 should the toil still be enforced, the 

 shank bone afterward projects. If these warnings are disregarded, inhu- 

 manity provokes the heels to be drawn upward, and a valuable helpmate 

 is thus incapacitated from assisting man in his earthly task. 



While writing of the horse, it should not be forgotten that in this coun- 

 try there is another animal which properly belongs to the equine race, 

 and which is liable to most of the evils as well as worthy of much of 

 the commendation that has been already pronounced, as though these 

 referred only to one specimen of the tribe. The donkey is much misun- 

 derstood. Because its name has become a figure of reproach, no writer 

 hitherto has dilated seriously upon its requirements, although several 

 have been ignorantly sentimental, where suffering needed only truth to 

 plead in its behalf The animal must have its uses, or its breed would 

 not be preserved. 



The fact establishes that the creature is of service to mankind, since 

 the life, whose season of utility has expired, like the dodo, soon ceases to 

 exist. It is, however, chiefly the property of those whose feelings are 

 subject to their necessities. The purchase of such a chattel is compara- 

 tively easy ; the food is the refuse of the stable ; but the work is often 

 disproportionately heavy, for the ass too frequently belongs to those 

 whose daily round of toil would tax the strength of the largest horse. 



The prejudice which encircles this miserable being appears to be coun- 

 tenanced even in the dissecting rooms of the veterinary profession A nat- 



