HISTORY OF HORSE-SHOEING. 



13 



forward. The author was the first to notice the slipper-shoe, 

 with its bearing surface inchned outwards, named after De la 

 Broue. In Germany, during this century, horse-shoeing was 

 only slightly touched on in veterinary works, — the Thirty Years' 

 War retarding the development and advance of science. With 

 the institution of veterinary schools in the eighteenth century, 

 the farrier's art once more rose to prominence, mainly owing 

 to the discoveries in connection with the anatomy and 

 physiology of the horse's hoof. Towards the close of the 

 eighteenth century the literature of farriery received many 

 important addi- 



tions; and the 

 improvement of 

 horse - breeding, 

 due to the intro- 

 duction of Ori- 

 ental blood, had 

 an indirect though 

 sensiblv beneficial 

 action in advanc- 

 ing the art. 



In France, dur- 

 ing the course of 

 the eighteenth 

 century, a work 

 on horse - shoeing 



was published by Lafosse the elder, in which was recommended 

 a special shoe, — thick at the toe, thinner towards the heels, flat 

 on the ground surface, and provided with eight nail-holes, equally 

 distributed throughout its extent. Lafosse clearly recognised 

 the advantage of allowing the frog to touch the ground. To 

 minimise slipping on smooth pavement, he suggested a system 

 of shoeing which presents a striking , likeness to the Charlier 

 method, introduced a hundred years later. In 1768 Bourgelat, 

 the founder of the first veterinary school at Lyons, described 

 with great exactness the proportions for fore-shoes, and the 

 height of the heels and toepieces. His shoe is long and 

 trough-shaped ; and when seen from the side, presents a certain 

 resemblance in outline to a boat. While the French owe to 

 these two authors a large debt of gratitude for their efforts in 



Fig. 8. 



