284 THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY 



coronet. These changes in the shape of the hoof are 

 brought on by slow degrees, and thus escape obser- 

 vation until they have proceeded to such an extent as 

 to lay the foundation of permanent and incurable 

 disease. It is certain that the chief cause of injury to 

 the hoof arises from the stable, to which may be added 

 the bad consequences of shoeing, even when executed 

 in the most proper and judicious manner. 



That these effects manifest themselves more or 

 less in different subjects is doubtless true, to a certain 

 extent ; but this may be in some measure attributed to 

 an original difference of constitution. 



Many ingenious theories have been published on the 

 best means of obviating this inevitable evil, and a long 

 list of hoof-ointments have been recommended by 

 regulars as well as quacks, all of which may serve to 

 amuse the curious, or to impose upon the credulous 

 part of mankind, but which upon trial will prove 

 eventually to be but fallacious preventatives. There 

 is a strange propensity in the human mind to ascribe 

 every thing to some mysterious source, even though 

 the origin of any particular circumstance stares them 

 in the face as plain as the sun at noon-day. 



When the frog becomes diseased, it is called a run- 

 ning-thrush. This may proceed from the frog wanting 

 pressure, owing to its being kept off the ground, or 

 from a disposition to inflammation in the foot increased 

 by standing on stale litter. When the frog is not suf- 

 ficiently pressed upon, it becomes soft from the accu- 

 mulation of the fluid which it naturally secretes -in 

 great abundance from the fatty substances which lie 

 immediately under the aponeurosio of the flexor tendon 

 of the foot. This accumulation of fluid at length makes 

 its escape through the cleft of the frog and heels, and 

 becomes foetid by exposure to the atmosphere, and so 



