PHYSIOLOGY OF THE FOOT. 
439 
rest; physiology being never called into play until the horse 
cannot go to suit some one’s balance sheet. Physiologists 
will not sneer at the farrier’s shop after that “ the balance 
sheet has cured them/’ “so many pounds profit, and all from that 
nasty cold iron.” I ask of John Stanton a balance sheet! 
Shakespeare made FalstafF say, “honour would not mend 
a leg,” neither will it a horse’s foot, “ so we will have none 
of it.” Physiology is “worth nothing to us” in the ordinary 
practice of shoeing. I am, Sir, 
Yours faithfully, 
J. T. Hodgson. 
Sir,—I beg to forward to you, agreeably to the request of 
Mr. Hodgson, the accompanying papers, which he has sub¬ 
mitted to my perusal. I must plead a pressure of business 
for not having attended to them earlier. 
Mr. Hodgson does me the honour of requesting my opinion 
of his writings, and wishes me to express the same candidly 
to yourself. 
Now, from what I can gather, it is Mr. Hodgson’s opinion 
that the horse’s foot expands neither at the heel nor quarters, 
that there is no descent of the sole; in fact, that there is no 
motion going on in the hoof except a gradual increase or 
spread of the base which accompanies the slow growth of the 
horn. This he seems to consider is favoured by the pressure 
from above; whilst, at the same time, the heels are made to 
bend inwards, and thus take the curve they are always found 
to have. 
This doctrine (which is flatly opposed to that of expansion) 
he endeavours to support by reference to Coleman, and, conse¬ 
quently, gives quotations which are intended to show that 
Coleman himself was not a believer in the expansion of the 
horse’s foot! 
In requesting my opinion of the accompanying papers, I 
suppose it is Mr. Hodgson’s wish to know, if I think he has 
succeeded in making a convert ( post-mortem ) of the immortal 
professor ? 
Now, with regard to the perusal of an author’s writings, I 
think we can best glean their meaning by considering the 
impression they leave upon our minds, and, certainly, that 
which I received by studying the works of Coleman was, 
without a doubt, that he was a believer in, and promulgator 
of, the doctrine of expansion ,—of an expansion of the foot 
taking place at every step of the animal. And that this ex¬ 
pansion was produced both by the pressure of the internal foot 
