416 
EDITORIAL REMARKS. 
THE VETERINARIAN, JULY 1, 1849. 
Nequid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.—C icero. 
Mr. Gloag having brought his experiments on the expansive 
properties of the hoof of the horse, in our present Number, to a 
close, the time is arrived for us to make a passing remark or two on 
them. We are ourselves perfectly aware, and so, doubtless, are 
most of our professional friends, of the difficulties with which ex¬ 
periments such as Mr. Gloag has been engaged in are beset, and 
the objections to which they are liable, when their declared object 
comes to be to solve no less a problem than the action of the living 
horse’s foot. No veterinary subject has been investigated with 
more pains than “ the foot.” In the last century, Solleysel], La- 
fosse, and James Clark; in the present, Coleman, Girard, Good¬ 
win, and Bracy Clark, have all laboured in this inviting field of 
research, and through their joint exertions have built up a system 
of plantar physiology which time has done something to establish, 
and which certainly, after the years it has stood, is not doomed to fall 
under any light or casual attack; though, like all other old fabrics, 
it may be shewn to have its faults—be perhaps with advantage 
modified or added to, and even pulled down in places to make room 
for alterations and improvements. In the remarks we are going to 
make, it is not our intention to enter into any physiological dis¬ 
quisition on the foot, but to confine them to the question of expan¬ 
sion, and to restrict this question so far as it applies only to the 
parts of the hoof said in particular to be the subjects of expansion, 
viz. the heels and quarters. 
The phrase “ expansion” is comprehensive enough, even as ap¬ 
plied to the horse’s foot. It may be accepted either in the sense 
of any spread or dilatation the hoof may undergo in action or out of 
action, with or without the imposition of weight upon the horse’s 
back; or it may merely signify any increase of width the hoof is 
found to obtain at bottom in the course of growth downward from 
the coronet. Mr. Gloag’s experiments have reference, in particular, 
to the former of these; or rather, we may say, they were insti¬ 
tuted for this special purpose. 
