10 MR. PHRCIVALL’s INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
of natural shoe or covering and defence for the sensitive 
parts of the foot; and in truth this is one intention of 
it. But the man who is unacquainted with its internal me¬ 
chanism, supposes also (and naturally enough) that the sole of 
the foot, like the sole of his own boot or shoe, bears the weight 
of the animal. What will be his astonishment when I tell him 
that, instead of the burthen being received upon the sole, it is 
borne by what he might call the upper-leather —a part we have 
named the wall of the hoof, from the circumstance of its running 
round and inclosing all the other parts. 
If we examine the interior of the wall, we shall find that it is 
laminated —that is, that it has attached to (or rather growing 
from) its surface 500 longitudinal plates of horn, and that these 
are for the purpose of receiving in the intervals between them 
500 correspondent plates of organic or sensitive structure, and 
that in this manner the body of the animal is, as it were, slung 
or suspended from the walls of the four hoofs ; and to prove that 
this is the case, the soles have been removed from the feet 
altogether—have been what is called drawn —and yet the sensitive 
foot has not come to the ground—not fallen through the hoof, 
but remained suspended within it: indeed, as far as the support 
of the weight was concerned, every thing remained just as 
secure as though the soles had not been removed. Here, gen¬ 
tlemen, is a simple fact—simple now, because it is known—but 
one, simple as it is, that a man might work all his lifetime in a 
blacksmith’s shop without discovering ; and be in the end in the 
situation of the tradesman turned gentleman, in Moliere’s play, 
who, on learning for the first time English grammar rather late 
in his days, found he had been speaking prose all his life without 
knowing it. The surgeon even, with all his medical knowledge, 
would be as little prepared to meet with this fact as the black¬ 
smith, or any other person: he would naturally say, that he 
expected to find lamina, because such a structure exists in the 
human nail; but he would never have dreamt that such a 
function as the support of the animal was performed by them. 
To proceed, gentlemen, one step further with this interesting 
part of our subject:—the beautiful structure we have just been 
examining not only supports the weight of the animal, but 
answers another purpose, scarcely less important; and one 
without which the former would not only prove of much less 
avail, but could not in safety go on at all. Not merely suspended 
is the weight, but the suspensory apparatus is itself elastic — 
yields and retracts—so that every time the horse, in going, puts 
his foot upon the ground, the suspending substance gives—elon¬ 
gates—and thereby breaks the force of the shock, warding off 
