186 ON LAMENESS IN THE HOCK JOINT, 
cases, are the effects of disease; and have done so, because he 
called on the profession either to admit or deny his statements and 
views. I have denied, and he is bound to prove his assertion. 
That is the state of the question ; and it is no use for Mr. Spooner 
to attempt to escape from his position. It matters not upon what 
grounds I have done so ; he is bound to prove his right. But if 
he wishes to know, I can tell Mr. Spooner that I have satisfied 
myself that what he describes as abrasions “ are exactly alike and 
in every respect the same ” as my oil cisterns, and that there is 
‘‘no mistake'^ about the likeness; the only difference, then, 
between us is as to the nature of the thing. 
Your readers will recollect that I have stated that these sulci 
are to be found, in one form or another, in all true joints. I have 
mentioned grooves and indentations as illustrations; and Mr. 
Spooner puts in italics, that I have concluded that these ‘‘are 
exactly alike and in every respect the same.” He wishes to be 
very witty upon this point, and amazingly logical. “ Does it 
not,” says he, “strike the clear-headed reader, that, before Mr. 
Dick takes upon himself to make the many flat contradictions 
contained in his first paper, he should have better satisfied 
himself and his readers that we were both arguing upon the same 
thing?” Now, my dear Sir, I dim perfectly satisfied, and I have 
little doubt that most of your readers are perfectly satisfied, that 
we are arguing about the same kind of thing ; and I am somewhat 
inclined to think, that Mr. Spooner must be almost, if not alto¬ 
gether, satisfied on the subject ere now. But lest there should be 
any mistake, and as some of your readers are inferred 7iot to be 
“clear-headed,” (as Mr. Spooner appeals to the clear-headed 
class) perhaps it may be necessary for me to be even more explicit 
in my denial of the correctness of Mr. Spooner's views than I 
have yet been. He seems not to understand that muddy-headed 
readers, like myself, require him to prove that he is right; and if 
he does so, it will then be evident to the clear heads that I am 
wrong. But I again assert, that Mr. Spooner has given such an 
accurate account and description of the best-formed joints with 
the synovial cisterns in them, that even a muddy-headed reader 
cannot have any difiiculty in understanding him. But, then, Mr. 
Spooner says I jump to my conclusions, because I, being muddy- 
headed, have supposed he has examined no others : but I do this 
because he says, “ Have I gone to the knackers or the kennel, 
and searched for hocks supposed to be diseased, and then con¬ 
cluded, as a matter of course, that the horses to which they 
belonged must have been lame? No ! I have related no case— 
I possess no specimen of the disease whose previous history I 
have been unacquainted with.” Where in this does he tell us 
