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.

    47/173 (page 42)
    This I mention, lest a casual view of the frog in a young horse might lead the reader to suspect this statement not to be correct. Indeed, after a consideration of all the circumstances, our conclu- sions would be, that the frog was not designed by nature for much pressure, and that only at intervals, under strong exertion to relieve the other parts;—and we may remark, the pressure of the nails of the shoe is perpetual; (and so should be the pressure on the frog to resist it; if contraction is to be prevented by this means): but this will be most forcible when the animal is in action, and the expansion of the foot called for by the inward pressure upon the contents of the hoof, which then strain ineffectually against the nails. For though much has been said about the frog being raised from the ground by shoeing, and this elevation is certainly an evil consequence of the shoe, it is but one evil effect of it, and that in our opinion not the greatest. In concluding this account of the frog of the horse, it may be mat- ter of curiosity to some of my readers, to know the various appella- tions this singular part has obtained with different nations. The French call it La Fourckette or the fork, the Latins Furca, and once only in Vegetius we find the term “ Pendiginem’ applied to this part, appa. rently from its hanging down or being suspended from the roofing of the sole of the hoof, as it might appear to them. The Greeks termed it •fcz'htluv or the swallow, having a distant resemblance to the oval pointed body of that bird ; the circle formed by the heels and quarters would give a faint idea of the arched or sickle-like shape of their wings in flight; so that the appellation seems every way correspondent to the bold and fanciful imagination of this wonderful people. It ever oc- curs, however, with them, in the plural, %&i}pvet. The extraordinary origin of the term running Thrush from the Latin word Furca, which we have traced satisfactorily, will be found we apprehend amusing enough: Furca, in French Fourche, and its diminutive