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is no hair-splitting about a word ; ' contraction ' expresses no 

 real condition of a diseased foot ; atrophy, almost every dis- 

 eased condition. 



AN IMPORTANT OMISSION SUPPLIED. 



I looked in vain for the promised "test of value" of the 

 words contraction and atrophy, etymological or otherwise, but 

 not being able to find any in Mr. Gamgee's lucubrations, I have 

 endeavored to supply the omission. This omission was very 

 much to be regretted as " correct language is a key to the 

 sciences," and for the want of this key all our predecessors in 

 this department of veterinary pathology have been creating 

 imaginary evils and imaginary measures, and real evils have 

 been the result, so says Mr. Gamgee. 



''LANGUAGE IS THE KEY TO THE SCIENCES." 



We will therefore test the value of the word ' contraction ' 

 before we dismiss it to the limbo of obsolete terms, and of the 

 word atrophy before we clutch it to our bosoms as the one thing 

 needful in veterinary nosology. This must be the all-important 

 inquiry according to Mr. Gamgee, since the wrong use of a 

 word has led to such calamities to horses that we in common 

 deplore and attempt to remove or at least to mitigate. Is con- 

 traction, then, the meaningless term that Mr. Gamgee alleges 

 it to be when applied to certain diseased conditions of horses' 

 feet ? According to ' Webster ' the term implies an act, or a 

 state ; the act of contracting, or shortening ; the act of shrink- 

 ing or shrivelling; and the state of being shortened, shrunk or 

 shrivelled, or drawn into a narrow compass. Entick's Latin 

 Dictionary informs us that the adjective contractus means con- 

 tracted, shortened, abridged, drawn, or gotten together, raised, 

 gathered, wrinkled, shrivelled, joined close, riveted, narrozu, straight, 

 difficult. These various meanings must therefore give the noun 

 contraction a pretty wide range of application. One can 

 almost imagine the lexicographer to have had a horse's foot in 

 ,his 'mind's eye ' when he penned the above definition of con- 



