VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XVII, No. 194. FEBRUARY 1844. New Series, No. 26. 
LECTURES ON HORSES. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S., Veterinary Surgeon 
First Life Guards. 
THE ACT OF STANDING. 
IT might appear that the quadruped, with his four legs as props 
of support, was sustained mechanically in the standing posture, after 
the manner of a four-legged stool or form ; and, nicely poised as 
his body is between them, and advantageously placed as the legs 
evidently are for its support, at first sight the animal structure is 
not unlikely to impart a notion of the kind. As anatomists, how- 
ever, we know that the limbs, from the circumstance of their being 
made with joints in them would, were they not themselves sus- 
tained by some superadded power, bend and give way under the 
superincumbent weight, and let the body down ; we know also 
that the faculty they possess of supporting the body is essentially 
a vital one, the dead animal losing the property of standing. It is 
from the operation of the living muscles on the bones that the 
animal derives the power of standing, as well as of moving ; 
therefore it is that, when we speak of “ the act of standing,” we 
are correctly expressing ourselves, it being in a physiological point 
of view as much an act as walking, or trotting, or galloping is. 
Each limb is kept in a state of extension underneath the body by 
muscles, either themselves constituting part of it, or running from 
the body to be inserted into it; and though their actions or con- 
tractions come greatly short of what would be required for pro- 
ducing motion, still there can be no entire cessation of them without 
the animal falling. Some horses take their rest standing — never 
lie down. In these the muscles sustaining the limbs must be in 
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