File:The Horse - its treatment in health and disease, with a complete guide to breeding, training and management (1905) (14778479505).jpg

Identifier: horseitstreatmen09axej (find matches)
Title: The Horse : its treatment in health and disease, with a complete guide to breeding, training and management
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors: Axe, J. Wortley
Subjects: Horses
Publisher: London : Gresham
Contributing Library: Webster Family Library of Veterinary Medicine
Digitizing Sponsor: Tufts University

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
he hand. When we give full weight to the points of difference in the fore-limbsof the horse, as compared with the upper (fore) extremity of man, thesimilarity in the details of the plan of construction in both man and horsemust seem far more striking than the variations, and this fact, taken in SPECIAL FEATURES IN STRUCTURE 489 connection with the marked difference in the position and general functionsof the fore extremities in each subject, is certainly more suggestive of evolu-tion than of special design. Unless on the theory of evolution from remoteancestors, it is indeed unintelligihle that all the bones of the carpus (wrist)of man, conducing as they do to the greatest perfection of complicatedmovements, should be represented in the same joint (knee) of the horse,but so modified in their arrangement as to permit of no more than a simplehinge-like motion, which is quite effectually provided for in other hinge-joints by the adaptation of two bones only. And again, some of the digits
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 658.—Foot of Man and Foot of Horse Compared in Natural Positions(Note position of ground surface in each case.) A, Tibia. B, Astragalus, c, Calcis. u. Scaphoid. E, Internal cuneiform. F, Splint-bone (a vestige of2nd metatarsal). G, Cannon bone, or 3rd metatarsal. 1, 2, 3, Phalanges. of man, one of the five-fingered and five-toed mammals, are represented inthe horse by undeveloped structures or rudiments which serve no usefulpurpose, as the horse walks on the tija of a single finger and a single toe;in the foot of man, on the contrary, the whole of the bones from the ankle-joint are brought into use, forming the plantar surface or sole. Such amodification of structure in the lower animal can be understood only onthe assumption that it was the result of a gradual process of developmentthrough which the five-toed foot of the horses remote ancestors was incourse of ages transformed to the one-toed foot of the horse as we nowknow it. A very pronounced series of changes it must be al

Note About Images