THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XLIY. 
No. 525. 
SEPTEMBER, 1871. 
Fourth Series. 
No. 201. 
Communications and Cases. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANATOMY AND 
PHYSIOLOGY OF THE HORSE'S FOOT. 
By George Fleming, M.R.C.V.S., Royal Engineers. 
Physiology of the Horse’s Foot. 
( Continued from p. 529.) 
Formation and Growth of the Hoof . — -Our study of the 
Anatomy of the Horse's Foot has made us acquainted with 
the wonderful disposition, structure, and character of the 
different parts which compose it, and which render it a some- 
what complicated piece of mechanism. We have now to 
inquire into its Physiology in order to learn the nature, 
relations, and vital and mechanical functions of this part of 
the animal's body — functions which, by reason of certain 
specialities of form, structure, and operation, give to the 
horse's foot a particular and interesting character that dis- 
tinguishes it in a special manner from the feet of all other 
animals. 
In speaking of the vascularity of different parts of the 
foot when examining its structure, particular allusion was 
made to the large, extensive, and complex arrangement of 
blood-vessels in that organ ; an arrangement equally manifest 
in the interior of the principal bones as on their surface, and 
around the coronet as on the sole ; but most of all in the 
tegumentary membranes enveloping these bones, and lying 
immediately within the hoof. It is, in reality, to endow 
these membranes with the highest degree of vitality, and to 
ensure their possessing the most perfect secretory and repara- 
xliv. 45 
