EXPANSION OF THK FOOT OF THF HORSE. 
538 
Now, this would have been bold language some years ago ; but 
as he concludes “ nil desperandum , for great truths there will 
always come a time and place and so it seems to be with the 
expansion of the foot and shoeing : no one now contravenes what 
these gentlemen advance upon it, although Mr. Clark experienced 
so much opposition in former times. This unilateral shoe 
fastened on one side and round the toe of the hoof with six or 
seven nails, with the inside quarter free, has been used ever since 
about the year 1821, by various persons desirous of carrying 
into practice Mr. Clark’s principle of expansion; and the first 
printed notice of it was an account, in February 1829, of nu- 
merous experiments made under the eye of Mr. C. himself, in 
Paris, in conjunction withM. Crepin, the editor of the Journal 
Pratique de Medtcine Fcterinaire. 
A translation of part of this account was sent by me to the 
Lancet , to shew that our principles were making way in 
France ; and some months afterwards, Mr. Turner’s account of 
his experiment appeared. 
He has the honour of being the first college veterinarian who 
openly acknowledged the substance of this doctrine, and detailed 
the successful result of some months’ trial of the one-sided 
nailing; and it was in consequence of his remarks, published some 
years ago in your Journal, that these country practitioners were 
induced to adopt the principle; and, call it by what name they 
will, I cordially congratulate them all on their accession to the 
good cause. 
But what are the teachers about at our veterinary school ? 
Do they mean to stem the progress of the principle? No ; that 
is wholly beyond their power. They must follow quietly in the 
wake of the profession, as they will not manfully lead the way. 
It is, perhaps, owing to the disfavour with which Mr. B. 
Clark and his principles have been viewed at that institution 
(or it may be from some other cause) that I think, without 
exception, your correspondents, Mr. Editor, have studiously 
avoided even mentioning his name in their communications, 
although identified, as it were, with the doctrine and sentiments 
they are expressing. But the scientific, both at home and 
abroad, know too much of his unremitting exertions, for a long 
series of years, to procure freedom for the foot of the horse, to 
render any trifling neglect of this kind of material consequence ; 
and with respect to minor variations in shoes to effect that 
object, I say as before, several years ago, u let experience decide 
between them, but our principles must triumph.” 
Veterinary Infirmary, Giltspur Street, 
Aug. 20, 1836. 
