382 PHYSIOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO LAM1NITIS. 
too tight, and the clips hammered down too, most un- 
mercifully ! Poor smith ! again thou art the culprit — but 
gently thou stern monitor, listen to what thy carter has to 
say; he says, “the horse was like as if he was failing of his 
fore feet some days before he was shod. I told the smith 
about it, and he examined the nailholes, and said they were 
all right, and his feet were as sound as bells, only rather hot” 
This lets out the secret ; the mine was all ready to explode, and 
driving the nails did it. 
I can readily conceive that some of mv readers will not 
agree with me in some of the positions I have advanced. 
This is not to be surprised at, for experience proves the 
difficulty, and even impossibility, of all minds accepting a 
new view of a subject on its first presentation to them. 
Most minds are innately and unconsciously prejudiced against 
innovations. But, by way of illustrating my meaning, I 
will take a case of “ humour , 55 and ask, Will any rational 
man say that it is a disease of spontaneous origin, and that the 
elements or cause of the engorged and tumefied lymphatics 
did not exist in the system previous to the first or slightest 
swelling becoming recognizable ? Horses that are liable to 
become lame from “ these humours 55 are looked upon with 
suspicion, and in many stables are not allowed to stand still 
a single day, not even Sundays, without exercise. Experience 
has shown the carter and ostler, that only one day 5 s standing 
still is amply sufficient to enable the disease to accumulate and 
concentrate itself in sufficient force so as to produce tumefac- 
tion and lameness. Every spring or fall, too, that horse has to 
be bled or physicked in order to avert the attack ; but, because 
this horse does not become lame (which, by the by, he some- 
times does despite every precaution), must it be, therefore, 
inferred that the system of that horse was free from the 
igneous element which has such a strong predilection for the 
lymphatics? In this instance the standing is not the cause 
of the attack, it only allows the passive to assume the active 
state. The same in navicularthritis, how often is it that the 
earliest alarm-note is sounded immediately after the horse has 
been shod, although that operation was performed with every 
possible care, and the horse is lame ever afterwards. Must 
it, therefore, be inferred that the shoeing was the cause? 
No such thing; it only excited or awoke the disease that had 
already taken possession of its birthright, but was retained 
in a passive state. From the above view of the subject I 
think we cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that there is 
in every constitution a strong leading tendency or pre- 
disposition to arrive at a climax, which no effort of ours, at 
