THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XVI, No. 184.] APRIL 1843. [New Series, No. 16. 
LECTURES ON HORSES. 
By William PerCIVALL, M.R.C.S., Veterinary Surgeon , 
First Life Guards. 
THE HAUNCH AND THIGH. 
THE divisions of the hind extremity are, the quarter , buttock 
or haunch, the thigh, the cannon or leg, the pastern, the coronet, 
and the foot : the joints connecting these parts to each other being, 
the hip joint or round-bone joint, the stifle joint, the hock joint, the 
fetlock joint, the pastern joint, the navicular joint, and the coffin 
joint. 
When we come to examine the skeleton and consider the bones 
of the hind extremity in reference to the parts denominated “ thigh” 
and “ leg” in the living animal, we find the same discrepancy pre- 
vailing as was noticed on a former occasion in regard to the fore 
extremity. The os femoris, so named by anatomists, because it 
corresponds to what, in the human skeleton, is the true thigh-bone 
— in the quadruped becomes an os ischii, or haunch bone ; while 
the tibia and fibula — the bones of our leg — appear in the horse 
as ossa femoris or thigh bones. Pursuing this analogical investiga- 
tion, we discover the heel of man to be converted into the hock of 
the horse ; and the bones of the hands and fingers, by union, con- 
solidation, and great additional length and development, to be made, 
in four-footed animals, into legs, pasterns, and feet. Man, being 
the peculiar object of the anatomist’s study, the prototype of all 
his other inquiries, the standard to which all his comparisons are 
referred, we need feel no surprise that the bones of the parts we 
are engaged in considering should have received names, according 
to horsemen’s views, so inapplicable to them. To prevent any 
misunderstanding or mistake, however, we must continue these 
appellations; we must still call that bone which, in the living 
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