34 
REVIEW. 
“ These properties, though common to both fore and hind 
extremities, are not possessed by them in equal proportions, 
owing to the hind limbs being more particularly the agents of 
impulsion, while the fore are more engaged in support. 
* * * * 
“ What most strikes us when we come to examine into the 
structure of the foot*, considering it as a part of the locomotive 
apparatus, is, the predominance of passive agents, such as 
bones and ligaments and tendons, over active ones or muscles. 
Muscular fibre, we might say, has no existence, save in the 
lineamentary form, as within the substance of the suspensory 
ligament, and in the little lumbricoid fasciculi, sortes d'organes 
d'attenie, which appear to have no other use in the animal 
economy than that of denoting the transition to a more complex 
organization. 
“ Regarding the foot, then, as purely objective, we come at 
once to the conclusion, that its part in locomotion is exclusively 
passive. That, constituted as it is of the basement layers of 
the column, it unceasingly sustains the entire weight of the 
body while in progression. The same weight undergoes all 
the augmentation the force of animated impulsion necessarily 
imparts to it; besides which, it becomes the point d'appui to 
the various locomotive levers of which it forms the termination. 
And, lastly, it becomes a very powerful agent, in its operation 
as a spring in the distribution of the weight transmitted to it; 
thus moderating the effect of pressure upon the ground, as well 
as the force of the re-action of necessity resulting therefrom.” 
Omitting what follows on, 
I, The Mechanism of the Articulations of the Foot, 
II, The Functions of its Tegumentary Membranes and Fibro- 
elastic cartilaginous Textures, 
We come to what in our country is apt to command more 
attention, viz. 
III, The Part the Hoof plays in Locomotion. 
“ The hoof answers a triple purpose :— 
“ 1st, It serves as the point d'appui . 
“ 2dly, It protects the living parts from the contact of such 
bodies as might do them injury. 
“ 3dly, It also contributes, along with the fibro-cartilaginous 
apparatus of the coffin bone, to the development of that pro¬ 
perty of elasticity, the conditions of which are so admirably 
combined in the construction of the locomotive column.” 
* The word foot is used here in the most comprehensive sense, to denote all 
below the knee and hock respectively. 
