MECHANICAL TREATMENT OF LAMENESS. 
29 
Because an extensor and a flexor tendon are inserted or attached 
to the os pedis, making of the os pedis a perfect fulcrum for the 
articulation of the whole limb ; and it needs no great degree of 
scientiflc knowledge to understand that perfect harmony must 
be maintained between these tendons, and the only way to 
maintain this harmony is by keeping the os pedis in a perfectly 
horizontal position, that is to say, by keeping a perfectly- 
balanced foot laterally and a relative height of the heel and toe ; 
as it will be readily seen that with a long high toe we will have 
a corresponding elevation of the toe of the os pedis. Now, 
imagine, if yon please, a poor horse trying to perform his daily 
labors with an abnormally long, high toe ; thus throwing the 
articulation of the coffin joint out of harmony; that is to say, 
the articulation is more on the extensor than on the flexor sur¬ 
face of this articulation, and it is no exaggeration to say that 
the poor horse is probably badly out of balance laterally with a 
high inside heel and toe, or the reverse ; and is it any wonder 
that we have the whole machine out of balance and that ring¬ 
bone, spavin, splints, navicular disease, etc., etc., follow as a 
natural sequence. I think the wonder is that they last as long 
as they do. And what is the condition of the joint when we 
have an uncommonly high heel ? While this is a condition of 
the foot that we seldom meet with, yet, nevertheless, we do oc¬ 
casionally meet with a foot with an uncommonly high heel ; 
and while nature has wisely provided the horse with a long 
flexible pastern which would naturally overcome to a great ex¬ 
tent the ill effects of an abnormally high heel, yet harmony is 
lost, and that elastic, springy action so greatly admired by 
everybody is gone, never to return until that foot has been 
restored to a perfect balance. Now the cause of ordinary bone 
spavin, I think, is a high inside toe. Why? because the con¬ 
cussion and jar sustained by the joints and bony columns of the 
limbs must be greatest above the highest part of the foot ; and 
to verify this statement one has only to look for a recently 
formed spavin which is characterized by well-marked lameness, 
to find a high inside toe ; and, furthermore, when the high in- 
