SHOEING AND THE MANAGEMENT OF THE FEET. 315 



this would be an unreasonable objection, because the shoe woukl 

 be capable of doing wlitvt no other shoe can. The peculiar 

 principle of the shoe consists in a joint at the toe, so constructed 

 as to admit of a limited and small degree of motion between the 

 two branches of the shoe. I have already said that I do not 

 think the various degrees of chronic lameness, which are now so 

 loudly and justly complained of, are caused by bad shoeing; nor 

 do I think that any mode of shoeing will cure them. In making 

 this assertion, however, I wish to be understood clearly : in those 

 chronic lamenesses, I do not include corns, or bruises of the foot 

 from the shoe bearing improperly, or fi-om the nails being of a 

 bad form or size, or from being driven improperly. If I rightly 

 understand jNIr. Bracy Clark, he is of opinion that all the shoes 

 hitherto employed, except his, must inevitably produce con- 

 traction, by the restraint they impose upon the elastic parts of 

 the hoof. In direct proof of this, he brings forward a few ex- 

 periments ; and, in support of his opinion, he argues with great 

 learning, zeal, and ingenuity ; still he cannot get over this plain 

 matter of fact, that the plain English shoe, such as I shall next 

 describe, has been employed in a regiment of cavalry for nearly 

 fifty years, without producing the effect generally, or in any de- 

 gree noticeable, t^at he has ascribed to it. When I was appointed 

 Veterinary Surgeon to the Royal Dragoons, I waited upon 

 General Goldsworthy, the commanding officer, who advised me 

 not to make any alteration in the shoeing, as the method they 

 practised, which had been introduced by his predecessor, Lord 

 Pembroke, had been found to answer completely. I continued 

 in the rcf^iment seven years, and found that this was really the 

 case. When I was last at Exeter, that is, in June 1822, some 

 part of the regiment was quartered there, and, upon inquiry, I 

 found that they still shoed in the same manner, and with the 

 same effect. As Lord Pembroke's work is out of print, and 

 perhaps rather scarce, I trust it will not be an unacceptable ad- 

 dition to this small volume, if I transcribe the most interesting 

 ])art of it, and introduce such remarks as may appear to me 

 useful. 



* " Physic and a butteris," his Lordship says, " in well-informed 

 hands would not be fatal ; but in the manner we are now (1778) 

 provided with farriers, they must be quite banished. Whoever 

 lets his farrier, coachman, or groom ever even mention anything 

 more than Avater gruel, a clyster, or a little bleeding, and that 

 too very seldom, or pretend to talk of the nature of feet, of the 

 seat of lamenesses, sicknesses, or their cures, may be certain to 

 find themselves very shortly and very absurdly quite on foot." 



The instrument named the drawing-knife is generally em- 

 ployed to remove what appears to be superfluous in the hoof at 

 the time the horse is brouuht to be shoed. The mischief that is 



