REVIEW. 
89 
should not have thought it worth while to have dipped into 
afresh but for the statements we have deemed it incumbent upon 
us to canvass in the work before us. 
Bourgelat’s notions of the elastic properties of the 
FOOT come short even of Lafosse’s. A few words in his 
Theoretical and Practical Essay on Shoeing comprehends all 
he has said on the subject. 
“ A volume duly proportioned, a regular form and substance 
solid and yet possessing suppleness , a fibre even and closely 
knit, constitute, in a general way, the qualities one looks for 
and ought to find in a (good) foot.” And a little farther on, in 
speaking of the disadvantages arising from too large a foot, he 
says, “ Owing to its inflexibility , its hardness, and more than 
all to its approximation to soft parts to which it serves as a 
defence, it causes them, through compression, more or less 
acute pain.” 
Girard’s opinions, in the preface to the Third Edition of 
his Treatise on the Foot, disputes Bracy Clark’s pretensions to 
the discovery of the elasticity of the foot, giving the originality, 
with more patriotism, we think, than justice, to Lafosse and 
Bourgelat. “ But,” adds M. Bouley, “ not only have our 
authors refused justice to Bracy Clark, “Even his own country¬ 
men, Mr. W. C. Spooner and Youatt, have denied him priority 
in the discovery: the former ascribing it to Lafosse, and the 
latter refusing even once to mention his name, although both 
have repeated his theories.” 
The answer to all this having been already given, let us 
proceed with our history, and pass on to 
Perrier’s Theory on the Elasticity of the Foot: one 
that came forth in a work he published in 1835, 
On the means of procuring the best horses, for the 
army : M. Perrier being the principal veterinary surgeon to 
the 2d Carbineers. This theory is almost the very reverse of 
the one generally received. 
“ At the moment the toe of the hoof strikes the ground, ‘the 
weight, thrown principally upon the anterior parts of the foot, 
causes the descent of the sole at that part where its arch is 
greatest, the immediate effect of which is, the expansion of its 
sides:’ such expansion being most effective at the time the foot 
comes down flat upon the ground, and the pressure descends 
directly upon the quarters and centre of the sole. But the 
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