VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XV, No. 177.] SEPTEMBER 1842. [New Series, No. 9. 
LECTURES ON HORSES. 
By WILLIAM PERCIVALL, M.R.C.S., Veterinary Surgeon 
First Life Guards. 
LECTURE IV ( continued ) . 
THE SHOULDER ( continued ). 
WE must not think of quitting this subject until we have pro- 
fitted by the brilliant lights that have been incidentally cast upon 
it by one of the greatest physiologists and discoverers of the age 
in which we live, — the late Sir Charles Bell. Every one is ac- 
quainted with those interesting and beautiful productions, “ The 
Bridgewater Treatises,” among which, as one link in the series, 
stands the work from which we are about to make extracts that 
will confer pre-eminent richness upon our present field of in- 
vestigation. 
After observing that, in the horse and other quadrupeds, with 
few exceptions, the connexion between the extremity and the 
trunk is solely through muscles ; and that in the horse, as in most 
quadrupeds, the speed results from the strength of the loins and 
hinder extremities, Sir Charles continues, “Were the anterior ex- 
tremities joined to the trunk firmly, and by bone, they could not 
withstand the shock from the descent of the whole weight thrown 
forwards; even though they were as powerful as the posterior ex- 
tremities, they would suffer fracture or dislocation. We cannot 
but admire, therefore, the provision in all quadrupeds whose speed 
is great, and whose spring is extensive, that, from the relative po- 
sition of their bones, they have an elastic resistance, by which the 
shock of descending is diminished.” 
“If we observe the bones of the anterior extremities of the 
horse, we shall see that the scapula is oblique to the chest; the 
humerus oblique to the scapula ; and the bones of the fore-arm, 
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