64 
MU. MORTOiN’S INTRODUCTORY 
sition, and adds greatly to tlie ease, freedom, and safety of action. 
It is also very much in accordance with the action of the coffin, 
navicular, and pastern joints, relieving them from that abrupt toe¬ 
ing concussion occasionally so unpleasantly felt on riding horses 
shod on our common English plan, which is a perfect level from toe 
to heel. In my estimation, the bevelled toe connected, according 
to circumstances, with our modern improvements, constitutes the 
most perfect shoe for a roadster, and would tend to obviate one 
great evil, which I have often noticed in the shoeing of hunters— 
suffering the foot to grow too much to toe. 
A sportsman, ever anxious to avoid losing a shoe from over¬ 
reach, directs his horse to be shod very short at heel; the heels, 
consequently, grow obliquely forward, and the toe long, giving the 
coffin and navicular joint a very unnatural position—the anterior 
part of the coffin-bone becoming elevated from a superfluous 
growth of crust at the toe, the leverage of which must distress and 
injure the navicular joint, and render the back tendons more sus¬ 
ceptible of being strained. 
MR. MORTON’S INTRODUCTORY LECTURE ON 
CHEMISTRY. 
On Monday evening, the 10th of the last month, we had the 
inexpressible pleasure of hearing the first chemical lecture which 
has been delivered in the Theatre of the Veterinary College since 
the erection of that building. The interest of the pupil, and the 
demand of plain common sense, have at length prevailed; and a 
course of lectures on the principles of chemistry, and. their con¬ 
nexion with veterinary therapeutics, has been commenced, under 
the sanction of the Council, by our excellent and talented friend, 
Mr. Morton. In the name of the pupils and the profession we 
cordially thank the Governors of the College for this boon. 
Mr. Morton was surrounded by many of his old friends, and the 
theatre was crowded with the pupils. 
‘‘ The period has at length arrived,” said he, when the Go¬ 
vernors of this Institution have determined that Lectures on Phar¬ 
maceutical Chemistry and Veterinary Materia Medica shall be 
delivered within its walls; and, while I hail with exultation this 
boon to the student and the profession, I cannot help reflecting on 
the feebleness of him who has been appointed to communicate in¬ 
struction on these all-important divisions of the studies of the 
veterinary pupil. It is true, that the importance of these subjects 
has been long impressed upon my mind; and I have not been a 
