539 
MR. B. CLARK-S HIPP0D0N0M1A. 
return to their natural length, and the coffin bone rises to its 
former situation, and the sole again ascends, and the middle of 
the foot contracts, and the horny frog resumes its folded state, 
and the cartilages return to their place, and every thing is ready 
for renewed action. This is the elasticity of the business. We 
can likewise readily see how the resistance of the nails shall prevent 
the lower expansion of the foot; and if the base of the foot cannot 
widen, the sole cannot descend, and the laminae cannot elongate, 
and the most important functions of the foot are crippled, and 
injury must necessarily ensue. 
Now we do allow, that notwithstanding our complaint of a little 
looseness and want of order, Mr. B. Clark has put these things 
in a clearer point of view than any preceding author had done, 
nay, w 7 e will say, than any succeeding author has done. He has 
prepared the way for more accurate and comprehensive views of 
the structure and connexion and functions of the different parts of 
the foot, than w^ould have existed had not his treatise been com¬ 
posed. He has and he deserves our gratitude, and we do think 
that the merit of his work has not been sufficiently appreciated : 
but, then, he must not claim too much. It is that assumption of 
a false claim which has done him and his work so much injury. 
He is not the discoverer of the elasticity, w r e would rather say 
the expansibility of the foot, nor of the evils which result from the 
resistance of the nails; and he must not so readily and so rancor- 
ously abuse those who cannot allow 7 him all that he demands. 
The date of Mr. Clark's first publication is, w r e believe, 1809. 
In 1801, Mr. R. Lawrence published his elegant w 7 ork on “ The 
Structure of the Horse. 5 ' At page 42 we find this passage:— 
“ The quarters and heels are naturally capable of an elastic ex¬ 
pansion when the hoof is not shod . This elasticity contributes to 
facilitate the circulation of the blood through the foot, to furnish 
a spring to the action of the leg, and to lessen concussion. 55 
Five years before, Mr. Freeman's splendid work appeared; it 
contains these decisive passages :—“ These returns, imvards and 
forwards, take the name of the bars, or binders; they enclose 
these extremities of the cartilages in the same way as the quarters 
cover the heels, and equally admit of expansion and contraction; so 
that, when a horse is in full gallop, there is a repeated alternation 
of these opposite actions. For when his feet strike the ground , 
the elasticity of the bars aids the pressure of the bones in the 
expansion of the heels , which are again immediately contracted 
by the quarters the moment his heels are again in the air.” 
‘ At page 101 is, if possible, a more conclusive passage : — u A 
horse may be said to have a foot half cloven, that is to say, a 
foot having the power of expansion at the clefts of the heel , but 
confined at the toe.” Can language be plainer than this ? or can 
