THE UNILATERAL SHOE. 



339 



the shoe is or may be bevelled. A shoe bevelled still farther is necessary to protect 

 the projecting or pumiced foot. 



THE UNILATERAL, OR ONE SIDE NAILED SHOE. 



For a material improvement in the art of shoeing-, we are indebted to ]Mr. Turne. 

 of Regent Street. What was the state of the foot of the horse a few years ago? An 

 unyielding iron hoof was attached to it by four nails in each quarter, and the conse- 

 quence was, that in nine cases out of ten the foot underwent a very considerable alter 

 ation in its form and in its usefulness. Before it had attained its full development— 

 before the animal was hve years old, there was, in a gTeat many cases, an evident 

 contraction of the hoof. There was an alteration in the manner of going. The step 

 was shortened, the sole was hollowed, the frog was diseased, the general elasticity 

 of the foot was destroyed — there was a disorganization of the v.'hole horny cavity, 

 and the value of the horse was materially diminished. What was the grand cause 

 of this? It was the restraint of the shoe. The firm attachment of it to the foot by 

 nails in each quarter, and the consequent strain to which the quarters and every part 

 of the foot were exposed, produced a necessary tendency to contraction, from which 

 sprang almost all the maladies to which the foot of the iiorse is subject. 



The unilateral shoe has this great advantage : it is identified with the grand prin- 

 ciple of the expansibility of the horse's foot, and of removing or preventing the 

 worst ailments to which the foot of the horse is liable. It can be truly slated of this 

 shoe, that while it affords to the whole organ an iron defence equal to the common 

 shoe, it permits, what the common shoe never did or can do, the perfect liberty of the 

 foot. 



We are enabled to present our readers with the last improvement of the unilateral 

 shoe. 



The above cut gives a view of the outer side of the off or right unilateral shoe. 

 The respective situations of the five nails will be observed ; the distance of the last 

 from the heel, and the proper situations at which they emerge from the crusi. The 

 two clips will likewise be seen — one in the front of the foot, and the other on the side 

 between the last and second nail. 



The second cut gives a view of the inner side of the unilateral shoe. The two 

 nails near the toe are in the situation in which Mr. Turner directs that they should be 

 placed, and behind them is no other attachment, between the shoe and the crust. The 

 portion of the crust which is rasped off from the inner surface of the shoe is now, we 

 believe, not often removed from the side of the foot ; it has an unpleasant appearance, 

 and the rasping is somewhat unnecessary. The heel of this shoe exhibits the method 

 which Mr. Turner has adopted, and with considerable success, for the cure of corns ; 

 he cuts away a portion of the ground surface at the heel, and injurious compression 

 or concussion is rendered in a manner impossible. 



