540 
MR. B. CLARK S UIPPODONOMIA. 
the most luminous paragraph in Mr. Clark’s book more clearly 
state that action and function for which he contends ? 
In 1802, the first edition of Mr. Blaine’s Veterinary Outlines ap¬ 
peared : we extract the following, vol. ii, p. 388:—“ The frog acts 
upon the cartilages, which, directing the future growth of the crust, 
widens and expands it; and the heels of the frogs, being placed 
behind the coffin bone, and hence, as Mr. Coleman observes, 
in contact with moveable, elastic, and not fixed substances, by 
this means a lever is formed, and an elastic spring given to the 
animal. The bars, likewise , by their elasticity , aid in this gene¬ 
ral spring afforded the parts > and hence widen the heels in their 
action as well as prevent their approx imation in a state of rest .” 
As early as the year 1770, we find in that excellent book of 
Mr. James Clark, and which contains the marrow of almost 
every tiling which has been since said about the foot, the follow¬ 
ing important passage, 3d edit. p. 36:—“ In the middle of the 
frog is a longitudinal cleft or opening, by which the heels 
have a small degree of contraction and expansion at every 
tread which the horse makes upon the ground and in 
his Preface, p. 15, he shews us how deeply he had thought 
of this when he says ,— 1u It must therefore be allowed that 
it is of much greater importance to endeavour to prevent those 
diseases from taking place, and thereby preserving horses sound 
and active in their feet, by treating them in that manner which 
nature points out as most proper and necessary, than to risk their 
being rendered lame by following those opposite practices which 
are exceedingly detrimental to the feet; not only by imposing an 
unnatural shape upon the hoofs, by which the horse is rendered 
lame, but by opposing and thwarting the natural functions 
which are necessary to preserve the feet in a sound state.” 
One last quotation from the gentleman on whom Mr. Clark, and we think not 
with justice, lavishes his principal abuse. It was published eleven years before 
Mr. Clark’s work. (Coleman on the Foot, vol. ii, p. 85) : “When the foot is 
placed on the ground, the laminae are put on the stretch, and to act as a spring, 
they must, in some degree, elongate. The laminae, however, unless the horny 
sole at the same time descends, cannot elongate ; for if the horny sole was a fixed 
point, or made of inelastic materials, so as not to yield to the pressure of the 
weight on the coffin bone, then the laminae could not be stretched or put into motion. 
However elastic the laminae, the coffin bone and the sensible sole would be resisted 
in their descent by the inelastic sole, and as firmly fixed as if the laminae had been 
made of bone or any other inelastic substance. In order that the functions of 
these elastic organs should be duly performed, it must follow, that the coffin bone, 
the sensible sole, and the horny sole, should descend in the same proportion as 
the laminae elongate, and thus the combined action of these parts prevents con¬ 
cussion of the whole animal, and of the foot in particular.” Although this 
is expressed in a round-about way, it is sufficient to convince us that Mr. 
Coleman was not ignorant of the elastic principle of the foot of the horse ; and 
if he had added, what doubtless passed in his mind, and an inference which a 
child would have drawn, that while the sole descended the base of the foot must 
widen , w r e should have had Mr. Bracy Clark’s principle of elasticity and expan¬ 
sibility, so far as we understand it. We have not room at present for more ; and 
must reserve many additional observations for an early number. 
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