206 
OBSERVATIONS ON SOUNDNESS. 
adjoining farms, where only an occasional foal is bred, I 
think there is no doubt but that the cause I have suggested 
is a very common one. At any rate, I feel persuaded that it 
must be so. 
If these views be confirmed by the experience of others, 
they call for a deep consideration as to the advisability of 
using such paddocks permanently for the purpose of rearing 
valuable thoroughbred horses. If a change of locality 
could be made for two or three years, or for such a length of 
time as would be required for the ova to perish on the original 
pasture, then the animals might be returned to it again with 
safety. No loss need be occasioned by such an arrangement, 
as the paddocks could, with great advantage to the herbage 
itself, be fed with another species of animal. The medical 
treatment for the expulsion of worms from the intestines of 
animals should at all times be left in the hands of a competent 
veterinary surgeon. I have no doubt but many a valuable 
foal or yearling which, had it lived, might have been the 
winner of the Derby, has been sacrificed to the use of some 
drastic nostrums, prescribed by some self-opinionated person 
wholly unacquainted with the action of the medicines which 
he administers for the expulsion of worms. 
OBSERVATIONS ON “ SOUNDNESS.” 
By R. H. Dyer, M.R.C.V.S., Waterford. 
[Continued from p. 146.) 
Having taken a hasty glance of the different structures 
met with in the course of our examination of the fore limb, 
it becomes necessary to direct our attention to the foot. It 
would be supererogatory to remind any of your readers that 
the examination of the pedal extremity is one of extraordi¬ 
nary interest. If my memory serves me, the late Professor 
Coleman found matter for forty lectures, or thereabouts, 
when giving- instruction to his class in the anatomy, physio¬ 
logy, and pathology of the foot of the horse. Whether the 
knowledge the learned professor possessed of the subject was 
all that was required, is not for me to venture an opinion 
upon; but, I may be permitted to state, that even at the 
present day much has to be learnt with reference to the 
physiology of certain parts of the foot. 
