THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XVI, No. 188 . AUGUST 1843. New Series, No. 20. 
LECTURES ON HORSES. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S., Veterinary Burgeon 
First Life Guards. 
THE bones below the hock being the same in number and kind 
as, and similar in structure to, those below the knee, and their rela- 
tions and uses being alike, there will be no need here to add any- 
thing to the descriptions already given of the cannon and splint, 
and pastern and sesamoid bones; and as every individual part of 
the machine, the foot excepted, has now been described, I shall 
once more take a review of the skeleton as an entire structure, enter- 
ing more fully and practically than has been done before into the 
consideration of it as a machine intended for purposes of loco- 
motion and the carriage of burthen. To this end we will first con- 
sider 
THE PROPORTIONS OF THE HORSE. 
In the construction of animal bodies Nature appears to have had 
two grand objects in view, utility and beauty. An all-skilful hand has 
so made every “ living thing,” that, with an exterior calculated to 
excite our admiration, interiorly it is furnished with every requi- 
site for the performance of those functions for which it was created. 
How beautifully is this illustrated throughout the animal creation ! 
How beautifully is it further illustrated throughout individual ani- 
mal mechanism ! Not an animal, not a part even of an animal, 
but what is made and fashioned after a manner excellent in design, 
inimitable in execution. In what the finite view of man regards as 
beauty, no animal, man excepted, is allowed to exceed the horse : the 
well-known admired picture which David has drawn of him in the 
Psalms ; the eloquent allusions Shakspeare and other writers of 
eminence have made to him ; all attest the estimation in which 
VOL. XVI. 3 L 
