ART. V. SOME NEW OR IMPERFECTLY UNDERSTOOD POINTS IN THE ANATOMY OF

THE HORSE'S FOOT. *

BY JOHN A. MCLAUGHLIN, JR.,

STUDENT VETERINARY MEDICINE.

(From the Laboratory of Comparative Anatomy and Pathology, Columbia Veterinary College, 11).

IT

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.

T is no exaggeration to state that over one-half of the equine disorders which the veterinarian is called upon to treat are located in or have taken their origin from the hoof, and the tissues enclosed within its horny case.

Comparatively insignificant in the multidigitated mammals, the ungual structures in Solipeds attain an importance, with which their intricate vascular and nervous supply is in full accord.

The student of Veterinary Medicine is often embarrassed by reading of hearing of contradictory views in regard to the pathology and treatement of the diseases of this important apparatus. A priori one should suppose that a reference to the anatomical structures and physiology of these structures in the foot would render all these doubtful points more certain, and would give a far safer basis for pathology and treatment than mere abstractions based on hap-hazard experiment, or even of routine experience.

This consideration has induced me to conduct special researches on the topographical anatomy, the histology, and the mechanism of the healthy foot. Although we have the excellent manual of Leisering, and the able articles of Fleming to guide us in this interesting and practical field, yet it must be confessed that in many respects still greater clearness is desirable.

* Lack of space in the present number forbids our giving this article in full.

Thus to mention but a single instance in point. Fleming insists that the podophyllous tissue, although it secretes horn in laminitis, does not do so under normal circumstances. My results so far are quite contradictory to those of the great British authority, and the matter will be fully discussed in these pages.

Then again, although the structures of and around the foot articulation have been repeatedly studied, no one has, in accessible publications, given a clear topographical description of the relations of this joint and its bursa.

I have undertaken in the limits of this article to discuss the following points. If I have in the course of my descriptions repeated many well-known and long-established statements, the reader will recollect that such repetition was necessary to the unity of the subject:

1. The coarse descriptive anatomy of the foot structures. 2. The normal growth of the hoof-horn.

3. The growth of the hoof-horn in the foetus.

4. The changes of the coarse structures with age.

5. The topographical anatomy of the hoof in mathematical projection.

6. The mechanism of the foot.

7. The vascular supply and innervation of the foot.

(To be continued.)

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

THE OBJECTS AND SCOPE OF THE ARCHIVES.

We present herewith to the Veterinary Profession of America a Quarterly Journal devoted to Comparative Medical Science.

In offering this Journal to the profession, we have at least this excuse, that such a one is as yet a desideratum. Whether our present undertaking answers all the requirements of the situation or no, the reader will doubtless decide for himself. Our aim is to make it as valuable in the department of original contributions, and as comprehensive in its summary of what has been and is done abroad, as our best efforts can render it.

The Archives will contain the following Departments:

I. ORIGINAL ARTICLES, SELECTIONS, AND TRANSLATIONS.-We have secured the services of the most eminent Veterinary Teachers, practical Veterinarians, and Physicians interested in Comparative Medicine in the United States, Canada, and Germany, for this department.

II. EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.-Herein topies of special interest to the Veterinarian, such as those involved in Veterinary Legislation, higher Veterinary Education, etc., will be discussed by the Editor and his Staff.

III. ABSTRACT AND SUMMARY OF COMPARATIVE MEDICAL SCIENCE. This department will contain abstracts of all important treatises on subjects related to Veterinary Medicine from the English, German, French, and domestic literature. It is proposed to make this one of the most valuable departments of the "Archives."

IV. THE REVIEW DEPARTMENT will consist of reviews of the more important veterinary text-books and monographs appearing in each quarter of the year.

V. MISCELLANEOUS DEPARTMENT.-This will contain Reports of the more important and interesting autopsies, dissections, and cases observed during the quarter, also any other items of general interest as may merit the attention of the profession. Several reports of operations are deferred to the next number of the “Archives," considerable space being occupied in the present issue by the introductory lecture delivered at one of our Veterinary Schools.

While in one sense we place the "Archives" in competition with similar periodicals appearing on the other side of the Atlantic, we, in another sense, will cheerfully confess that, for the first few years at least, our aim cannot be as high.

The neglected condition of veterinary education in this country renders it incumbent on any journal addressed to the American veterinary profession to adopt a simpler tone than its transatlantic compeers. It must be more didactic, in the ordinary sense of that word, than the latter; deal with simpler issues, and be addressed to the student as well as the ripe practitioner. Hence the combination in the "Archives" of articles which, we trust, can be ranked as elaborate monographs, with others which are more comparable to lectures directed to a veterinary class. However much this association may appear anomalous to transatlantic veterinarians, we can assure them that the circumstances fully warrant it. Until Veterinary Science has reached the same level here as in Europe, and perhaps also in Canada, our“ Archives" shall not venture to simulate in every respect the excellent journals of the Old World.

The interest which members of the human medical profession have taken and are taking in comparative medical science, as well as the encouragement which our undertaking has received at their hands, encourages us to hope for a continuance and an extension of these favors, from those whose field of study and research that of the Veterinarian is so closely kin to.

"A NATIONAL BUREAU OF VETERINARY

INSPECTION."

The New York Medical Record, under the above heading, presents an item which is of considerable interest to the Veterinarian, and which we have therefore inserted in full on one of the last pages of the "Archives." The propositions in it merit our full endorsement. In the first place, the American Veterinary Association is not a body analogous to our National Medical Association; it is not composed of such elements as can claim the reverence due to scientific authority, and its dicta may be readily disposed of as possessing but a slight, if any intrinsic value. What the writer of that item says in reference to the fact that such a board would have no more legitimate or professional basis than a National Bureau of Barbers, is strictly correct, especially if we picture to ourselves this Board as it would be, presumably selected from among certain of the members of the American Veterinary Association.

The entire proposal savoreth strongly of what is technically known as a "job." All the work laid out for such a "Board" can be accomplished far more thoroughly by our already existing medical boards, and we can see no reason why the whole matter might not be safely confided to the Army Medical Department.

There is one single error in the writer's assumptions, which is merely a collateral one, but we feel compelled to refer to it. There are altogether three veterinary schools in this country, all of them in New York City, and all authorized to grant regular diplomas-not one, as stated by him. Of these three schools the one possessing the oldest charter consists of a building now used as a hospital stable by a veterinary surgeon; no lectures are given, nor any students visible around the deserted premises of its lecture-room. This is the New York College of Veterinary Surgeons. Two years ago the whole Faculty of this school, with the exception of two members, one of whom was accused of incapacity, (the other being neither a physician nor a veterinarian,) left this institution in a body and organized a new school, the Columbia Veterinary College." All the students of the New

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