444 INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF THE HOOF. [BOOK III. 



corpse shut up in its coffin * : and there is, cer- 

 tainly, no mode of arriving at a knowledge how 

 these act upon, and with, each other, but by dis- 

 secting the hoof. By this means the whole arcana 

 of its construction are laid open, but in no manner 

 so intelligibly as by the section straight up and 

 down from the toe up to the coronet, and through- 

 out between the clefts of the frog and heel. This 

 being done, the vessels which supply the juices for 

 renovating the wear and tear of the whole exterior 

 are plainly bared to the view : the ligaments, bones, 

 and tendons, show their means and manner of 

 action ; and, above all, the back sinew laid flat 

 behind the smaller pastern-bone, and quite so at 

 passing underneath the navicula, and at its inser- 

 tion in the bottom of the coffin-bone ; where its 

 structure being altered, it receives the designation 

 of " the sensible sole," partaking of the shape of the 

 horny sole, which we see upon turning up the foot. 

 On entering the hoof of the fore foot, the back 

 sinew acquires the term tendo pahnaris, among 

 the learned, at the hinder leg it is described as 

 tendo plantaris, and is here at its superior part 

 the seat of a disorder we call string-halt ; but within 

 the hoof, when fever has diminished the secretion 

 of ^iorny matter, and the internal parts of the 

 foot adhere together, both tendons are affected 

 with the general rigidity, which some persons pre- 

 tend to distinguish as " the navicular disease," sup- 



* Writers of the last century were wont to give this term "coffin" 

 to the horn we now describe as the wall. 



