THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XLIV. 
No. 522. 
JUNE, 1871. 
Fourth Series. 
No. 198. 
Communications and Cases. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANATOMY AND 
PHYSIOLOGY OE THE HORSE’S FOOT. 
By George Fleming, M.R.C.V.S., Royal Engineers. 
Physical and Chemical Properties and Minute Structure 
of the Hoof. 
[Continued from p. 321.) 
It has been already stated that the horn fibres are tubu- 
lar,* that their upper extremities — those next the living 
surfaces — have each a minute canal or pore, which contains 
an extremely fine tuft of vessels, that penetrates it to 
a depth varying from a quarter to half an inch. This 
tuft, being more or less conical or tapering, and the 
tube or fibre being, as it were, moulded on it, the canal has 
the same form, — wide at its commencement, where it is im- 
mediately in contact with the living surface, and gradually 
contracting in calibre as it passes downwards, though never 
becoming wholly obliterated. In a very thin transverse 
section of the wall or sole, we can see these canals sur- 
rounded by fine concentric lines, which represent the thin 
epithelial lamellae that form the walls of the canal or fibre. 
If the transverse section be made near the coronet, or on the 
upper surface of the horny sole or frog, the apertures will be 
found large, and the concentric rings few in number ; but 
when we examine a portion of either of these divisions lower 
down, we find that this order of things is becoming reversed ; 
# Professor Gurlt, of Berlin, was the first to observe this tubulous cha- 
racter of the horn fibres. Hi6 description was published in Muller’s 
‘Archives’ for 1836. 
XLIV. 
28 
