308 
A REPLY TO MR. C. CLARK ON THE DISCOVERY 
OF THE EXPANSION OF THE HORSE'S FOOT. 
By Mr. B. Hart, Zootrist. 
I hate the man that builds his fame 
On ruins of another’s name. Gay. 
To the Editors of “ The Veterinarian .” 
Gentlemen, 
I am induced to offer some remarks on a paper in your last 
Journal, in consequence of observing’ that it is intended and cal¬ 
culated to deprive departed worth of its just merits, so very 
ably pourtrayed in a work on the horse’s foot, the labours of the 
late Strickland Freeman, Esq., a true friend, and arduously de¬ 
voted to the improvement of the veterinary art. It is a task I 
have already undertaken in the Lancet; and I can now’ only add 
that I am at all times ready, determined, and fully prepared, to 
come forward as the advocate of so ardent a supporter of truth 
and science as this gentleman w as, let whoever will attempt to 
conspire against his fame and labours, or grovellingly decry 
their value, even if he assume the garb and character of a quack. 
That part which I have principally and first to deal with in 
substance is nearly as follow s, page 251, u that some person, 
who became acquainted w ith the expansion of the foot by and 
through the means of Mr. Clark, has found out and published 
some detached passages in the work of Mr. Strickland Freeman, 
an amateur writer, which seem to shew that he had some 
obscure and ill-understood views respecting the ‘ spring of the 
foot,’ as he terms it. I say they were ill-understood, because 
his ideas w ere not at all settled or consistent, and he recom¬ 
mended 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, w r as ever convinced of the expan¬ 
sion 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 necessity of expansion shoeing in consequence. It was in¬ 
consistent and unintelligible, and conveyed no meaning to any 
body, until Mr. Bracy Clark explained the whole upon principle; 
and it is only within the last twelvemonth that any merit has 
been claimed for Mr. Freeman, or that his name has been 
