THE horse's foot, AND HOW TO SHOE IT. 263 



trial of its advantages on more than eighteen hundred 

 horses; and his success was most astonishing, though 

 no more than might, on reflection, be anticipated." 



Lafosse goes on to observe, — 



" These short shoes, thin at the heels, have caused 

 the horses to walk on their frogs, which are their points 

 of support ; and those which were lame at the heels are 

 sound again; those also whose inside quarters were 

 contracted, bent over, and split (sand-crack), have been 

 cured. It has been the same with horses whose quar- 

 ters and heels have been contracted (encastele) : these 

 have been widened, and have assumed a proper shape. 

 The same may be said of those whose soles were con- 

 vex (comble)^ and which went lame with long shoes. 

 My method has also preserved those horses which had a 

 tendency to thrush (vulgo^ Jic) and canker of the frog 

 (crapaud). 



" If the horse be shod with calkins, there is a great 

 space between the frog and the ground ; the weight of 

 the body comes on the calkins ; the frog, which is in the 

 air, cedes to the weight ; the tendon is elongated ; and, 

 if the horse makes a violent and sudden movement, the 

 rupture of that organ is almost inevitable, because the 

 frog cannot reach the ground to support it in the very 

 place it ought to ; and, if the tendon does not break, the 

 horse is lame for a long time from the great exten- 

 sion of the fibres, some of which may have been rup- 

 tured. ... If the horse be shod without heels to his 

 shoes (eponges)^ the frog, which carries all the weight 



