52 ANATOMY. 



surfaces, which are here essentially necessary, as only half of 

 the horse's stomach is supposed to possess the power of 

 secreting gastric juice. We here, likewise, see the utility of 

 the saliva ; for, were the food to come into the stomach nearly 

 dry, the gastric juice, being but a mucus, would not pervade 

 all its parts, but would be lost upon some ; nor would the 

 mass be soft enough to spread in between its folds. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE ANATOMY OF THE FOOT, AND ITS DIS- 

 EASES. 



To a person totally unacquainted with the structure of the 

 horse's foot, it may appear as a mass of horny, insensible 

 matter ; especially when he sees a horse-shoer cutting off 

 large slices of it with the knife, and nailing to it plates of 

 iron. It will be found, however, to be a very complicated 

 piece of mechanism, but admirably calculated for sustaining 

 the immense pressure and concussion to which it is almost 

 constantly exposed. The horse's foot may be considered 

 under two heads — the sensitive and the horny parts. The 

 former consists of bones, ligaments, cartilages, membranes, 

 nerves, bloodvessels, &c, and is therefore susceptible of pain. 

 The horny part, on the contrary, is void of sensibility, and 

 serves principally as a defence to the sensitive parts, which 

 it covers ; it is endowed, however, with considerable elas- 

 ticity, which enables it to yield, in some degree, to the im- 

 pulse of the internal or sensitive part, in the various motions 

 of the animal ; therefore, if, there be any disposition or ten- 

 dency to contract or shrink in the horny covering or hoof, 

 the internal, sensitive foot will be more or less compressed ; 

 and, if the horny parts lose their elasticity, the sensitive foot 

 must suffer from concussion. So wisely, however, is every 

 part of the foot contrived, that when it is properly managed, 

 and judiciously pared and shoed by the smith, and when the 

 horse is employed only by a humane man, it may be generally 

 preserved in a sound state, perhaps nearly as long as other 

 parts of the body. It must be admitted, that old horses, like 

 old men, have not that ease and freedom about them which 



