On running frush of horses' feet / [Anon].

  • Bracy Clark
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On running frush of horses' feet / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    In the above work the Frog-stay or which is better, Furch-stay, is thus described. “In the base of the Frog, or posteriorly at its widest part, there is seen a deep oval cavity or depression, (see Frontispiece to Hippodonomia) and which hollow cavity is called the Cleft of the Frog or Furch, and whose edges or margins are surrounded by rising lips of a more polished, denser, and harder horn, apparently to secure it from rupture by external violence, and the sides of this cavity sloping pretty suddenly, meet and form a longitudinal line at the bottom of it, thus closing and terminating it. In the offices and business of, the foot this cavity appears to be useful in many ways. By its closing when strong pressure comes upon the base of the Furch, it saves it from a too severe condensation of its horn, which would be inconvenient by inducing an inordinate pressure to the tender parts immediately under it, as the principal flexor tendons and the joint of the foot. And in soils of a looser nature, as in sandy deserts, this cavity in the base of the Furch, can be farther useful by receiving them within in, thus rendering the foot more stable and Arm upon such loose kind of ground. This cavity assists also by the unoccupied space it afibrds in conferring a degree of liberty to all the posterior parts of the foot, by its permission of a yielding on all occasions, and which freedom, liberty and elasticity of these parts is highly essential to the health and well-being of the foot, and of the due performance of all its functions. But what we wish more particularly to impress upon the reader’s attention is, that this cell, or cleft, is prevented from being ruptured inwards, or towards the quick, by a stout cone of horn, which is passing upwards from it into the Sensitive Frog, and of which cone this cleft is merely the hollowed base. And it is somewhat remarkable, that this solid cone of horn, although passing within the sanguiferous and sensitive parts of the foot, is nearly or quite as hard as is the external horn exposed to the air, in order apparently to give it the more efficiency in resisting rupture from external assault; and this cone, we may observe, com- mences nearly opposite to the point where the terminations of the coffin bone are found, assist- ing in strengthening and consolidating these posterior parts of the foot in the absence of bone. The sides of this remarkable cone are somewhat compressed or flattened, and in contracting as it rises upwards, it terminates superiorly in a rounded, bluntish edge or ridge, and posteriorly erdarging, and becoming wider, it is presenting a broad flat surface for adherence to the Curtain of the Furch. This remarkable part was without any name and very little noticed, till I gave it the epithet Frog-stay or Furch-stay, from its holding together the cleft base of the Furch, and the French have followed the example in calling it L'arrette Fourchette, for the same reason. It is to be observed that the horse’s foot is not exactly a soUdungula, as the ancients called it, but is more properly a semifissipes, or half-cloven foot, for the hoof, though entire in front, has two terminations posteriorly, formed by its inflected extremities, and between which the Furch is inserted to fill up the large vacuity and with soft readily-yielding matter to obey the impulses and distensions of the wall; and the Furch again being nearly cleft asimder at its base, has given to it this singular nucleus, or centre-piece, the Furch-stay, in order to consolidate it, and to present a firm barrier to its separation at this part by external violence. And this barrier it is, when broken down, that is the real cause of Frush, or when during
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