LAMENESS AND DISEASES, ETC 131 



CHAPTER VII. 

 LAMENESS AND DISEASES OF THE FOOT- 



PATHOLOGICAL SHOEING. 



We can scarcely overestimate the value of sound legs and 

 feet in the horse, and having their condition and efficiency for 

 a subject, it also naturally follows that the pathology of these 

 organs becomes a special topic for inquiry, for their situation and 

 uses naturally expose them to a greater liability to injury and 

 disease than any other portion of the animal organization. 



The advantages to be derived from a safe and scientific 

 mode of shoeing in the treatment of many of the varied troubles 

 to which the feet and legs of horses are constantly subject, are 

 attracting more attention among horsemen than formerly, even 

 as the results to be obtained from such treatment are their own 

 best proof of the merits of the agency employed, which need 

 but to be seen and understood to be indorsed by all. It is the 

 verdict of experience that a rational, approved method of shoe- 

 ing will not only protect the horse's foot from injurious wear, 

 and thus prevent the certain damage otherwise ensuing, but act- 

 ing on the doctrine that " like cures like," it will transmute the 

 evils that men do into good, through its instrumentality as a 

 corrective for the manifold crimes committed in its name. This, 

 in truth, is the legitimate mission of farriery — "preventing, cur- 

 ing, or mitigating diseases." Veterinary surgery — indispensable 

 though it be as a healing art — is not competent to deai success- 

 fully with even the most frequent and familiar of the troubles 

 that beset or waylay the horse at almost every footstep, though 

 there are only too many cases in which horses are retired to the 

 hospital, or unnecessarily subjected to the torture of "fire and 



