INSTRUCTION OF FARRIERS. 107 



practice of shoeing, and this instruction is of great value 

 to them in after-life. 



It is scarcely necessary to say that in this country 

 nothing of the kind is attempted. 



The Government does nothing to improve or encour- 

 age veterinary science in any way ; hence the low state 

 of this important branch of medicine and rural economy 

 in Britain, and hence the enormous losses she has sus- 

 tained for so many years. Hence, also, the degraded and 

 barbarous condition of farriery, even in our cities and 

 towns. With the exception of, on very rare occasions, 

 the distribution of a prize or two at some local agricul- 

 tural show to farriers, who imagine that paring and rasp- 

 ing, and a fantastically wrought piece of iron, constitute 

 the acme of shoeing, the subject is thought unworthy of 

 notice. Even at the veterinary schools during my ma- 

 triculation, it was dismissed in a brief lecture of an hour, 

 and then pathological shoeing was chiefly referred to. 

 Nothing of the principles or practice was ever taught. 



When the Veterinary Colleges are so indifferent to a 

 matter so closely related to the comfort and efficiency of 

 the horse, we cannot wonder that veterinary surgeons, as 

 a rule, and farriers, take but little interest in shoeing. 



The remedy for this, of course, should be, in the first 

 place, applied to the teaching schools. The anatomy and 

 physiology of the horse's foot, its management in health 

 and disease, and the principles and practice of shoeing, 

 ought to be thoroughly inculcated. 



It would be most advantageous if, when this course 

 Ywis adopted, farriers could be prevailed upon to attend, 

 and, after due examination as to their competency to prac- 

 tise their art in a rational manner, they were to receive 

 certificates of proficiency as in Belgium — these certificates 

 carrying with them similar advantages to those that the 

 diploma of surgery confers upon the surgeon. 



