60 



SHOEING. 



jority of such cases can be easily cured while the horse is kept at 



his usual work, by putting on an open shoe if the foot will bear it, 



if not, a light bar shoe, with the 



part coming under the corn en- 

 tirely cut away, leaving only 



sufficient to cover the wall. It 



will not matter whether the bar 



is cut away or not, as there will 



be nothing over it to harbor 



gravel or dirt. It would be ad- 

 visable to fit the shoe carefully, 



or even drive two or three nails, 



to know exactly the position of 



the shoe upon the wall. Then 



mark the part to be cut out, when 



the nails can be pulled out, the 



part cut or filed away properly, and the shoe again nailed in place. 

 The success in the treatment of the case referred to, led me to 



believe I had made an important discovery, as I had not found it 



laid down by any authorities on 

 shoeing. Since then, upon in- 

 vestigation, I have found that the 

 principle was we/ understood by 

 many old authorities, though the 

 method of treatment, as will be 

 seen, was slightly different. 



On page 96 of Freeman's 

 work on " Shoeing," published 

 in 1796, he says : — 



Fig. 550.— The Shoe Made Wider than Foot, 



with Clips at the Heels for Opening the 



Quarters. A French Device. 



Fig. 551. — Form of Screw 



Used by the French for 



Spreading the Shoe. 



I have frequently bought horses whose 

 feet, on examination, proved to have 

 corns, occasioned by ill-made shoes hav- 

 ing pressed upon them. These were, in general, easily 

 cured by paring the feet properly where the grievance 

 lay, and turning the horse out without shoes for two or 

 three months. 



In the supplement to Coleman's work, pub- 

 lished in 1802, the writer found, for the cure 

 of corns, the shoe cut away over the corn, as 

 shown by Fig. 58Y. 



Bracy Clark's work, published in 1809, gives 

 an illustration of a shoe with that part which 

 would come over the corn entirely cut away. 



