THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XV, No. 179.] NOVEMBER, 1842. [NewSeries, No. 1 1 
LECTURES ON HORSES. 
By William PERCIVALL, M.R.C.S., Veterinary Surgeon 
First Life Guards. 
LECTURE VI. 
THE FORE LEG, OR CANNON. 
AS the krtee of the horse is the part which anatomically corre- 
sponds to the wrist of man, so the fore-leg, by the anatomist, is 
compared with that part of the human hand which extends from 
the wrist to the roots of the fingers ; the metacarpus, as it is tech- 
nically called. Hence the three bones composing the fore-leg in 
the horse are named, in accordance with the human metacarpus, 
the metacarpal bones. Carrying comparisons and names so far 
as this, however, appears, as Sir Charles Bell has aptly remarked, 
“ losing the sense in the love of system.” “ There is no regular- 
gradation, ” adds Sir Charles, in allusion to the many kinds of 
formation discoverable in the limbs, and other parts of animals, 
“ but a variety most curiously adapting the same system of parts 
to every necessary purpose.” 
The METACARPAL BONES, those that compose the leg, are three 
in number, viz. one large and two small. The large bone, one of 
the cylindrical class, and one that is particularly straight and round 
and smooth in its form, commonly goes by the name of the cannon 
hone : an appellation given to it, I imagine, from some sort of re- 
semblance it bears, it being perforated, to the barrel of a cannon, 
or else to a tube or pipe, which in Latin is canna, and from 
which our words cannon and canon are said to have been derived. 
The two small bones are very commonly called the splent or splint 
VOL. XV. 4 N 
