EDITORIAL REMARKS. 
231 
differently, however. He represents, as a fact in the physiology 
of the foot “ which has also escaped notice,” in relation to the 
crust, “ the downward and backward motion of its front at its upper 
portion” to be “a powerful spring in awarding (warding off?) 
concussion.” Of this “motion” of the crust Mr. Shaw has not 
given any satisfactory demonstration. The ablation of “ the 
strength of the crust” by rasping away the horn, and its conse¬ 
quent “ falling in,” is to us no proof of its “ motion ” in the nor¬ 
mal or unrasped state. Our own opinion is, that the coffin-bone 
owes its moveability, or rather its yielding faculty, to the elastic 
tissue binding the sensitive laminse to its walls. 
Before concluding, we would remark, for years past our mind 
has been deeply impressed with a notion that the received theories 
of the day offered in explanation of the physiology of one of the 
most beautiful and complex structures any animal body possesses, 
are doomed to undergo—to use the mildest expression—more or 
less alteration. Mr. Shaw has made a commencement, and he 
deserves commendation, and has ours, for it. There is a fine field 
before him; let him persevere. We shall be happy to hear of— 
we have never heard from —him, again. And we trust he will take 
in good part our counsel on the present occasion, which is, when 
he shall write again for publication, to be a little more careful in 
the correction of the press. 
THE VETERINARIAN, APRIL 1, 1849. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.— Cicero. 
Mr. MAYHEW’s entertaining narrative—if any thing medical can 
be called “entertaining”—in our Number for this month, of a 
case of that strange and rare disease, melanosis, while it warns 
veterinary practitioners how men eminent and experienced among 
them may, for want of attention to little circumstances, fail in their 
diagnosis, is calculated to impress the youthful professional mind 
with such knowledge as, in any similar occurrence, would pro¬ 
bably prove the means of directing it to a scientific and correct 
judgment. It was the little pea-sized tumour at the root of the 
tail which, in the case in question, led to the disclosure of the 
constitution of the tumour, whose nature the closest and nicest 
