SOLLEYSEL'S DIRECTIONS. 469 



fluous humour which falleth down upon the lower part of 

 the foot, and causeth the sole to grow round and high ; 

 and also the coffin-bone, or little foot, which is the bone 

 in the middle of the coffin, to push itself down, which, 

 through time, maketh the foot become round at the sole.' 



Flanders at that period appears to have furnished large 

 numbers of horses, whose special characteristics were hairy 

 legs, and wide flat-soled feet ; for this author, when de- 

 scribing the best way to remedy this defective form of 

 hoof by a shoe resting on the sole, instead of the customary 

 vaulted armature, adds : ' The surest way is to rectify such 

 bad feet in the beginning, and especially in the time when 

 horses alter or change their horn, which is the first six 

 months after they come from Flanders.' 



His advice to keep the sole strong by refraining from 

 paring it, to make the shoe fit the foot instead of the foot 

 the shoe, and to take a short thick hold of the wall with 

 the nails, is excellent. His remarks on pathological shoe- 

 ing, too, show much judgment and experience of this 

 important subject. The nails were to be thin and supple ; 

 large nails were destructive to the hoofs. For contracted 

 hoofs, he recommends the employment of Jers a pan- 

 toiifles., which he says were invented by M. de la Brone, 

 squire to Henry III. These were merely shoes with 

 the inner border of each heel turned downwards at a more 

 or less acute angle, so as to cause the heels of the hoof to 

 glide forcibly outwards when the horse's weight was im- 

 posed on them. Lunette shoes were also employed by 

 him for horses of the manege who had their hoofs con- 

 tracted. 



To the people who argued that horses were better 



