366 MR. BAZINg’s REPLY TO MR. SPOONEll. 
I proved that Mr. Clark’s and Mr. Turner’s systems are exactly 
alike, and expressed in almost the same language; both contend¬ 
ing for the elasticity of the foot of the horse, and directing their 
attention to the means of retaining that elasticity, and defending 
the foot at the same time; but each accomplishing his object by 
a method somewhat different from the other. 1 stated most ex¬ 
plicitly the offence for which I “ condemned” Mr. Turner, viz. 
assuming to himself the credit of another man’s discoveries and 
labours, which have been before the public above twenty years ; 
which Mr. S. himself states is the offence Mr. T. is accused of; 
and makes use of a “ professional metaphor” to illustrate it ; 
but he immediately loses sight of his own metaphor and Mr. T.’s 
offence, and says, very extraordinarily, “but I really cannot com¬ 
prehend the nature of the offence which has called forth so se¬ 
vere an anathema, and proved Mr. Turner to be actuated by 
meanness and quackery.” 
Mr. S. is not quite right in saying that “ an expansion shoe 
was in use in the days of queen Elizabeth.” A shoe with a 
joint was certainly recommended by a writer of that time, not as 
an expansion shoe, but as a hunting shoe; so that if a horse 
should throw a shoe during the chase, this jointed shoe might be 
applicable to the foot of almost any horse of the description of a 
hunter. The all-fitting shoe (if I may coin such a phrase) 
would be more proper than the expansion shoe. Blundeville, 
who was the veterinarian that recommended this shoe, forgot that 
a hammer, nails, pincers, &c. were necessary to fix this all¬ 
fitting shoe to the foot; and these tools, together with the shoe 
itself, were found to be much too cumbrous for a huntsman to 
carry with him; it consequently never came into general use. 
I know of no veterinarian prior to 1809 (which is the date of 
Mr. Clark’s work on the foot of the horse), that has distinctly 
stated that the foot is elastic, and requires an elastic defence; but 
I know that the present Professor, in his abstruse two volumes 
quarto, on that subject, says nothing about the elasticity of the 
foot; so that if it “was probably discovered ages ago,” it has 
never been acted upon, or even acknowledged, by the present 
supreme head of the science . 
The late Samuel Bloxam, Esq. whose talents and merits place 
him high amongst veterinarians, was the first who gave a public 
approval of the doctrine of the elasticity of the foot, published by 
Mr. Clark; and Mr. Turner is the second who has had the 
praiseworthy hardihood to differ from the college doctrine of frog 
pressure, and to adopt a mode of shoeing at all consistent with 
the anatomical structure of the foot. 
Mr. Spooner states, that “he shod his own mare, amongst 
