636 
THE CRAMP IN HORSES. 
it is very trifling. Indeed, I am not sure that the sole may not 
sometimes be brought down solely by the expansion of the crust, 
and quite independently of the descent of the coffin bone. 
Shoeing may make the one antecedent to the other ; but in a 
natural state, the descent of the sole and the expansion of the 
crust should begin and end simultaneously. 
Undue expansion, which is possible (though, having the con¬ 
trary evil always before our eyes, we may be unwilling to admit it), 
is prevented by the horny bars. They sink into the ground, and, 
by their oblique direction, assist the crust in opposing an in¬ 
jurious degree of expansion. 
The lateral cartilages, as far as the elasticity of the foot is 
concerned, might be wanting altogether. Their principal use is, 
to afford a bed for the coronary ligament and lamellae. These 
parts could not, consistently with their function, have been ad¬ 
herent to so unstable a piece of matter as the sensible frog, 
which, by changing its form at every step of the animal, would 
have rendered the secretion of a smooth sheet of horn impossible, 
and have endangered the connexion between the secretion and 
the secreting body. 
If this view of the functions of the posterior parts of the horse's 
foot be correct, it will, in many cases, influence our mode of de¬ 
fending diseased feet; and it will explain the cause of some dis¬ 
eases which are still very unsatisfactorily accounted for. How 
far it will do either, must, in the meantime, be left for others to 
determine: or, should leisure be found, I may again trouble the 
editors upon some future occasion. 
THE CRAMP IN HORSES. 
By M. Charles Peievost, US'., Geneva . 
So leys el and Garsault, in their Parfait Marechal, and Lafosse 
in his Dictlonnaire d } Hippiatrique, have mentioned the existence 
of cramp in horses. Since the time of these old veterinary writers 
to the present day, no one has written anything new on this 
malady. Some modern authors have repeated that which was 
written before, without adding a single observation of their own ; 
while others, and they the most numerous, have passed over 
in silence a disease which, nevertheless, is not rare in practice. 
This chasm in veterinary science has induced me to communi¬ 
cate to my colleagues a few of the cases of cramp that have come 
under my notice. Cramp consists in a sudden, involuntary 
muscular contraction : its duration is variable, and it attacks 
