625 
TO “ THE VETERINARIAN;’ &C. 
sion of the foot by growth, I consider Mr. Turner’s plan of the 
unilateral shoe to be the most natural mechanical agent that 
can be applied. But why all these doubts as to lateral expan- 
sion, &c. &c. 1 Why is not the matter at once set at rest by well- 
defined experiments 1 Is the subject of the foot to be inexhaustible 1 
In my opinion there is a shoe for every foot, a foot for every shoe, 
and thousands of feet that would have required very little, if any, 
shoes for many, many purposes, had they never known their use. But 
after the many instances I have seen of feet going wrong, and be- 
coming dreadfully deformed and diseased, while neither shoes, nor 
concussion, nor hard roads, had more to do with them than the pen I 
now hold in my hand, I am well convinced, that, shoe them how we 
may, we shall always have foot-lameness in England more than in 
other countries ; and, further, that the French system is, for the most 
part, decidedly less likely to produce lameness than our own is. 
Excuse the freedom of these remarks. They are the result of my 
regard for the veterinary profession, and of which, in this respect — * 
I mean dissent on several subjects, as well as conflicting opinions 
of its professors when under examination by the courts of law — I 
have more than once been its advocate, when it has been made the 
subject of conversation in society, in that of sportsmen especially. 
The eye of the public, the hunting public above all, is upon it; 
and the more consistent are its proceedings, the more it will increase 
in their estimation. For example, the uninitiated in these matters 
are naturally surprised when they turn from Mr. Clark’s assertion, 
founded, as might be supposed, on the soundest pathological know- 
ledge, that the foot of the horse does expand when in action, to that 
of Mr. Caleb Morgan — equally learned, for all they may know to 
the contrary — who proves, by the use of calipers and compasses, 
that it does not so expand*. Some silly fellow, writing under 
the signature of Nubia, in the Old Sporting Magazine , has had 
the hardihood to say, that the expansion takes place to the ex- 
tent of the eighth of an inch every time the foot comes to the 
ground ; but, as Mr. Morgan happily observes, he must have been 
in nubibus, when he hazarded such an assertion. It appears to me, 
that, in the succeeding number, this theory is almost annihilated 
by the sensible and practical observations of Mr. Caleb Morgan. 
I consider the extract from the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical 
Journal, respecting the casting and death of cavalry horses, a subject 
of much interest, inasmuch as it shews, first, that disease, inflamed 
lungs especially, is rife in cavalry stables, from the effect of bad 
* “ Something should be established beyond dispute,” says an anonymous 
writer in your February Number, 1838. “ Coleman would have frog pressure, 
Clark would have none; and Dick, of Edinburgh, declares it is of no conse- 
quence whether the frog has pressure or not.” 
