THE FOOT. 333 



inclined to the one side or to the other. This defect, rarely congenital, 

 depends rather upon improper shoeing. In the first case, it is caused 

 by a vicious axis of the superior parts of the member, and very often 

 accompanies the outbowed and the parrot-toed foot. At other times it 

 is observed in a horse simply too close or too open in front or behind. 

 In the second case, it is due to excessive paring by the farrier of one 

 of the two quarters. 



However it may be, the evil effects remain the same; the lower 

 side bears the most weight; the soft parts here are compressed and 

 bruised, and the quarter becomes tilted to one side. The shoeing 

 should endeavor to re-establish gradually the normal axis, by sparing 

 the deformed quarter, protecting it with the wide-heeled, projecting 

 shoe, if this be possible, and, finally, by lowering the normal quarter. 



Foot Pincard or Rampin (Fig. 122). Some make a difference 

 between the pincard and the rampin foot. Still, these 

 two are only degrees of the same defect, characterized 

 especially by the foot touching the ground only with the 

 toe. This disposition allows the heels to acquire a 

 great height. This defect is peculiar to the hind feet, 

 where it is in reality only an exaggeration and contin- 

 uation of the attitude which these members affect p IG . 122. 

 during the efforts of violent traction. It often coexists 

 with a low-jointed pastern. The rampin horse wears his shoe very 

 rapidly, but only at the toe ; his shoeing is expensive, and he is 

 exposed to fissures of the wall called toe-cracks, on account of the 

 excess of weight which this region of the foot must support. We 

 believe, with Lecoq, that most of the corrective measures resorted to in 

 the shoeing only aggravate this defect. Let us say, nevertheless, that 

 we are in the habit, in order to cure it, to save the heels and employ 

 the pincard shoej with corks on the heels, whose length is in relation 

 with the distance of the foot from the ground. 



Club-Foot. " There is not much accord," says Lecoq, 1 " upon 

 the true meaning of this word as applied to the foot of the horse. 

 Some, comparing this malformation to the same species of deformity 

 existing in the human subject, designate by the term club-foot any foot 

 that is strongly deviated outward or inward. This is a very rare con- 

 dition, since, as Girard has observed, a horse thus conformed, not being 

 able to render any service, is promptly sacrificed. Others designate 

 under the name club-foot all the deformities of the horse's foot in 



1 F. Lecoq, Ext6rieur du cheval, p. 175, 5e 6d., Paris, 1876. 



