428 CONTRIBUTIONS TO VETERINARY MEDICINE. 
He has reduced the expansion of the horse’s foot from an 
amount requiring jointed shoes, one side nailing, and I know 
not what beside, to an amount measured by a thin sheet of 
tin. (See the admission of Mr. Reeve, e Veterinarian 3 for 
1850, p. 199, in which M. Bouley concurs) How ought 
these admissions to affect practical shoeing, or rather Mr. 
Gloag’s proved theory of the descent of the heels? and how 
ought they to affect our future efforts to understand truly the 
physiology of the foot? All this we owe to Mr. Gloair; and 
is it nothing? Another gentleman objects to some of Mr. 
Gloag’s experiments, because they were made on dead feet, 
and it does not appear to have struck any one that the feet 
(hoofs) were as much alive when experimented on as they 
ever were. 
It may be unpleasant to think so, but the expansion 
theory is contracted for ever. Is it nothing that even the 
small amount of expansion contended for has been so diffi¬ 
cult to demonstrate ? Can any one prove, beyond a doubt, 
that in the lateral expansion experiments, the whole hoof did 
not move on the shoe (it was only fastened on one side), and 
make the marks on the outside quarter, without the hoof 
expanding at all, these marks which M. Bouley considers 
so very conclusive ; and, let it be borne in mind the “ harrow” 
is in the outside quarter, that the horse may have led with 
the experimental leg, may have turned his toe in, may have 
trod on an uneven surface, so as to throw his weight down 
on or against the pins,—say if it is impossible for the whole 
foot to have moved in the shoe to the extent of l-40tn of an 
inch? Why do not the hind feet expand as well as the fore? 
and why has no one ever thought of proving expansion from 
them? When a horse leaps a hedge with twelve stone on 
his back, do they not suffer enough of pressure from above, 
and concussion, too, when he gets to the other side ? They 
clearly require some amount of expansion ; and, given the 
l-40th of an inch for the fore feet, how much for the hind? 
Why must the hoofs destroy all the concussion the leg under¬ 
goes ? Why won’t the pastern do as well ? If the number 1 
represent the concussion destroyed in the foot, what number 
will represent that destroyed in the rest of the limb ? Will 
M. Bouley tell me, or anybody else, how it is that the legs 
of a mule, without expansion, suffer less from concussion than 
horses do with it? Why does he say Veterinarian / p. 150, 
4th line from bottom) “the heels of the hoof approach each 
other on coming to the ground, and separate again on leaving 
it,” if he wishes to prove expansion ? To sum up all, why 
does he not, in plain terms, admit that the expansion of the 
