A series of original experiments on the foot of the living horse, exhibiting the changes produced by shoeing, and the causes of the apparent mystery of this art / By Bracy Clark.

  • Clark, Bracy, 1771-1860.
Date:
1809
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A series of original experiments on the foot of the living horse, exhibiting the changes produced by shoeing, and the causes of the apparent mystery of this art / By Bracy Clark. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    This cone of horn not only forms the main barrier to the separation of the two halves when violence is offered; but what is more worth our attention is, that it appears to be this part when forced or destroyed that becomes the source and cause of the Running Thrush, and which under- stood will lead us to a better knowledge of this disagreeable complaint. As we mean on some future occasion to give a more enlarged account of this matter, we shall only state here very briefly the manner this appears to happen. When this Cone is defectively formed by nature, as by the want of sufficient bulk, or by weakness of its contexture— when reduced or wasted away from the same evils that reduce and waste the general mass of the horn of the frog—or becoming too brittle, hard, and dry, is in consequence liable to be broken by ex- ternal violence—or is decayed or weakened by much exposure to wet or filth;—in either of these cases its rupture admits a passage and lodgment for external destructive agents, as wet, dirt, urine, &c., and thus the Thrush appears to be formed; or even its own Secretions lodging in the part are sufficient for this Effect: these destroying the horn, at length reach the quick and sensitive parts, whose irritated surfaces produce the discharge in question, extending afterwards be* tween the halves or bifurcations of the frog. It may also have escaped the notice of some engaged in these studies, that an extension of the skin passes beneath the frog, and exists also between the bifurcations, and is the first part or surface that gives out the thrushy discharge, till at length in bad cases it gets destroyed, and the more internal parts become affected. This curious fact may be noticed by slitting open the frog and turning it back, when the skin may very distinctly be traced growing thinner as it ap- proaches the sole. In respect to the nature of thrushes, there has been a difficulty attendant on their formation at times, that has created much perplexity from the views formerly had of them; but which, after what has been explained.