Identifier: horseitstreatm09axej (find matches)
Title: The horse, its treatment in health and disease with a complete guide to breeding, training and management
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Axe, J. Wortley
Subjects: Horses
Publisher: London, Gresham Pub. Co.
Contributing Library: NCSU Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: NCSU Libraries

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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 diflference 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 umntelligihle 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
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Fig. 658.—Foot of Man anil Foot of Horse Compared in Natural Positions(Note position of ground surface in each case.) A, Tibia. B, Astragalus, c, Calcis. D, Scaphoid. E, Internal cuneiform. F, Splint-bone (a vestige of2nd metatarsal). G, Cannon bone, or 3rd metatarsal. 1, 2, 3, ! ofman, one of the five-fingered and five-toed mammals, are represented inthe horse bv undeveloped structures or rudiments which serve no usefulpurpose, as the horse walks on the tip 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 allowed, th

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