AND ONE-SIDED NAILING. 
251 
a person not of the profession, who first timidly ventured (lie 
measure with his own horse, which a practitioner would hardly 
have done (see p. 56 of the above work). 1 When this reply ap¬ 
peared I began to discover that Mr. Turner actually aimed at 
being thought the originator of this measure ; and in a rejoinder 
which appeared immediately after I so completely negatived his 
claims in this respect, that no further attempt w r as then made to 
defend them; and every one who read that paper must have felt 
satisfied that Mr. Turner was merely adopting Mr. B. Clark’s 
views w ithout acknow ledgment or allusion to him, I now' repeat 
my words at that time: “ While there are veterinary periodicals 
open to fair discussion, I w ill not allow any man to creep in by a 
side door and claim the merit of enlightening the world on this 
all-important principle, without making due acknowledgment 
to the original discoverer.” But though my proofs w ere uncon¬ 
tradicted, there still remained a strong aversion to admit them. 
A y’ear has since elapsed, during w hich another person, who be¬ 
came acquainted w ith the expansion of the foot by and through 
the means of Mr. Clark, has found out and published some de¬ 
tached passages in the work of Mr. Strickland Freeman, an ama¬ 
teur writer, which seem to shew r that he had some obscure and 
ill-understood views respecting the cc spring of the foot,” as he 
terms it. I say they were ill understood, because his ideas were 
not at all settled or consistent, and he recommended the common 
shoe nailed on both sides, and did not see the evil of it; and it 
is evident they were obscure, since no man, whether writer or 
practitioner, was ever convinced of the expansion of the foot by 
reading his book, though it has been before them for thirty 
years. During that time, amidst all that has been advanced 
and written on the subject, no one has declared that he learnt 
any thing from Mr. Freeman's book, or was led to see the neces¬ 
sity of expansion shoeing in consequence. It was inconsistent 
and unintelligible, and conveyed no meaning to any body, until 
Mr. Bracy Clark explained the whole matter upon principle ; and 
it is only with the last twelvemonth that any merit has been 
claimed for Mr. Freeman, or that his name has been brought for¬ 
ward. I asked Mr. Turner at that time, how or w hen he came into 
possession of the knowledge of the principle, except through 
Mr. Clark's works, and he could make, or did make no answer ; 
but now, since Freeman’s work has been quoted in the “ Lancet 
he chooses to say most readily, that not only he himself, but Mr. 
Clark also, has derived his information from this source, although 
twelve months ago he could not tell w here he obtained it. Now 
the fact is, that those detached passages in Freeman, before 
spoken of, could not be observed or understood by any reader 
