289 
REVIEW. 
Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non. — Hon. 
The Horse s Foot, and how to keep it Sound ; with Illustrations. 
By William Miles, Esq. London: Longman, Brown, Green, 
and Longman. Exeter: Spreat and Wallis. 1846. 
DOUBTLESS, it is the vast importance of the subject, coupled 
in most instances with the conviction that certain points, latent or 
ill understood, yet remain to be developed or explained, which 
prompts veterinarians so often to make choice of the Foot of the 
Horse as the burthen of their literary labours : in the case, how- 
ever, of non- veterinary writers on the subject, we cannot help 
suspecting another motive in addition, and that is, that the Foot 
of the Horse to them — who seldom extend their observations be- 
yond its outer covering — has the appearance of being a structure 
of singular simplicity and obviousness. Hence it is we find so 
many amateur writers and inventors of horse-shoes — so many 
persons, in fact, who though they pretend to no knowledge what- 
ever of anatomy and physiology, yet, in their own thinking, 
possess a perfect understanding of the Foot. Would these good 
people, however, but deign to cast a look into the interior , but 
condescend to take one glance of the works of the Foot, we have 
a notion they might exclaim, with the “eye-doctor” in the 
country who was celebrated for the operation for cataract, until a 
London surgeon taught him the anatomy of the eye — “ This know- 
ledge of anatomy has quite spoiled me for an operator” — mutato 
nomine, “ for a writer or inventer.” When we say that the can- 
didate for veterinary authorship who has selected for his theme 
the Foot of the Horse, and added thereto the Art and Practice of 
Shoeing, could hardly have hit upon subjects requiring for their 
exposition a more profound knowledge of anatomy and physiology 
than the one, or embracing a greater variety of opinion than the 
other, we may possibly stagger some of our amateur readers : 
such, however, is the case; and by way of proof we may bring 
under their notice such names as Solleysell, Lafosse, Osmer, 
James Clarke, St. Bel, Coleman, Goodwin, and Bracy Clark — 
men who have spent the whole or the best part of their literary 
lives either in the investigation of the structure and functions of 
the foot, or in the improvement of the art of shoeing. And by 
them and others has every corner of this field of science been so 
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