Oil the General Treatment of the Feet. 167 



sensible that the discussion of such a point, would have appeared 

 witli more propriety, in a re-^ular trealise on Shoeing, than in one 

 professing- to embrace the general treatment msrely, of the Feet. 



Nevertheless, I must here again repeat, that as I am well aware the 

 nails are the cause of that slow and gradual contraction, which the prac- 

 tice of shoeing inevitably produce in the Feet of Horses, so, in this 

 sense, they may be said to press or bind the Feet. A fact this, which 

 Mr. Coleman was so struck with, that, many years ago, after insisting 

 upon the conical forn» of the hoof, and its growth from the coronet 

 downwards, he mentions by way of illustrating these positions, the 

 curious instance of the overbearing influence of the crust, (in cases 

 where the shoes are left on too long a time) carrying the nails, out 

 of the direction they were originally driven in, in the course of its 

 growth downv^ards. It will scarcely be necessary to add that this in- 

 controvertible fact proves that the nails must have presented a strong, 

 mechanical impediment, to the spring and expansion of the inter- 

 nal, elastic sensitive fibres, of the coffin bone and cartilages of the 

 Foot. 



I am willing to flatter myself that in case I have succeeded in es- 

 tablishing the point which I have endeavoured to maintain, (namely of 

 proving) that no binding or pinching of the foot can be effected 

 through the medium of the nai's, in the ordinary mode of driving 

 them so as to produce sudden lameness without an accompanying 

 wound of the quick, it may be the means of producing more cir- 

 cumspection in those who practice the art of shoeing, especially 

 when they are convinced that the plea of pinching will not avail, 

 and consequently that the charge of pricking the Horse will b« 

 brought against them. 



