CONTRACTION. 407 



(?xtent will be found to exist between the hoof and internal strnctures of 

 the foot, generally commencing at the toe and extending upwards. In 

 its early stages, it is not generally attended with lameness, but as the 

 disease progresses, we frequently get considerable pain and lameness. 

 Our treatment, when the disease has not made much progress, should 

 consist in cleaning out the hollow, and filling the space with pitch com- 

 liined -with tar, placing a leather sole on the foot, and taking care to avoid 

 driving the nails near the diseased part. If the animal can be spared, a 

 bHster should be apphed to the coronet. Should the disease have far 

 advanced, and considerable lameness be present, the detached wall form- 

 ing the boundary of the hollow, must all be cut away and tar dressing 

 applied to the sui^face. A bar shoe should be placed on the foot, and the 

 coronet well bhstered. The animal should be thrown out of work, and 

 the blister several times repeated. The object of the blister will be to 

 stimulate the secretion of new horn, which, under any circumstances, will 

 be found a very slow process. 



CONTEACTION. 



The cut, page 395, will give a fair idea of the young healthy foot, 

 approacliing nearly to a cii'cle, and of which the quarters form the widest 

 part, and the inner quarter (this is the near foot) rather wdder than the 

 outer. This shape is not long preserved in many horses, but the foot 

 increases in length, and narrows in the quarters, and particularly at the 

 heel, and the frog is diminished in width, and the sole becomes more 

 concave, and the heels higher, and lameness, or at least a shortened and 

 feehng action, ensues. 



It must be premised that there is a great deal more horror of contracted 

 heels than there is occasion for. Many persons reject a horse at once if 

 the quarters are wiring in ; but the fact is, that although this is an 

 unnatural form of the hoof, it is slow of growth, and nature kindly makes 

 that provision for the slowly altered form of the hoof which she does in 

 similar cases — she accommodates the parts to the change of form. As 

 the hoof draws in, the parts beneath, and particularly the cofiin-bone, and 

 especially the heels of that bone, diminish ; or, after all, it is more a 

 change of form than of capacity. As the foot lengthens in proportion 

 as it narrows, so does the coffin-bone, and it is as perfectly adjusted as 

 before to the box in which it is placed. Its lamin.Ee are in as intimate and 

 perfect union -with those of the crust as before the hoof had begun to 

 change. On this account it is that many horses, with very contracted 

 feet, are perfectly sound, and no horse should be rejected merely because 

 he has contraction. He should undoubtedly be examined more carefully, 

 and with considerable suspicion ; but if he has good action, and is other- 

 "wise unexceptionable, there is no reason that the purchase should not be 

 made. A horse with contracted feet, if he goes sound, is better than 

 another with open but weak heels. 



The opinion is perfectly erroneous that contraction is the necessary 

 consequence of shoeing. There can be no doubt that an inflexible iron 

 ring being nailed to the foot prevents, to a very considerable degree, the 

 descent of the sole and the expansion of the heels below ; and it is like- 

 wise probable, that when the expansion of the heels is prevented, they 

 often begin to contract. But here again nature, cut off from one resource, 

 finds others. If one of the jugular veins is lost, the blood pursues its 

 course by other channels, and the horse does not appear to suffer in the 

 slightest degree. Thus also if the expansion of the heels below is 

 diminished, that of the cartilages above is made more use of. If the 

 coffin-bone has not so much descent downward, it probably acquires one 



