CHAP. I.] STUDY OF STRUCTURE NECESSARY. 439 



order to effect these objects, he should study the true 

 form and structure of well attached limbs, learn 

 the uses of each bone, ligament, and tendon, and 

 ascertain how it happens that deviations from 

 symmetry in the limb always affect the sole of the 

 foot, sooner or later. For he may rest assured, that 

 at the sole the horn is prepared in its liquid form 

 which afterwards ascends to the coronet, as we shall 

 show presently ; and that hence arise many of the 

 evils of mis-shapen hoofs, of ill-secreted horn 

 (whether brittle or soft), and the occurrence of 

 several other diseases there that frequently depend 

 upon constitutional ill health, but which never would 

 appear on the foot at all were it not for such con- 

 tractions of the horn, which further obstructs the 

 action of the sensible part of the foot ; whilst again, 

 this obstructed function also occasions a defective 

 supply of horn, and consequently hoof inadequate 

 to its purposes, as well as distorted. In those dozen 

 lines are exposed the cause of nine tenths of all 

 foot-lameness whatever. 



But so much space has been already occupied in the 

 description of the shape and attachment of the legs, 

 that it might properly be considered a waste of time 

 to enter into new details to the same purpose. The 

 reader will therefore turn back to the early sections of 

 the first book (page 25, &c.) and he will readily per- 

 ceive in what manner an originally defective limb, 

 or the ill-adaptation of the parts to each other, or 

 its awkward attachment to the body, affects the 

 tread in earliest life, may become the harbinger of 



u 4 



