CLARK ON DEFECTIVE SHOES. 



511 



away with it. If this should happen a few days after the 

 foot has been so finely pared (which is not unusual), or 

 upon a journey, and at a distance from any place where a 

 shoe may be immediately procured, the horse instantly 

 becomes lame, from the thinness of the sole and weakness 

 of the crust, and is hardly able to support the weight of 

 his own body, much less that of his rider.' 



This able writer gives two drawings of one of these 

 terrible instruments of torture — the foot and ground sur- 

 face of an ordinary shoe (figs. 189, 190). 



fig. 1S9 fig. 190 



The shoe recommended to be worn by Mr Clark is 

 that described by Osmer, though he says it was employed 

 by him many years before that veterinarian's treatise was 

 published. ' In shoeing a horse we should in this, as in 

 every other case, study to follow nature ; and certainly that 

 shoe which is made of such a form as to resemble as near 

 as possible the natural tread and shape of the foot, must 



be preferable to any other In order that we may 



imitate the natural tread of the foot, the shoe must be 

 made flat, if the height of the sole does not forbid it ; it 

 must be of an equal thickness all around the outside of 

 the rim (for a draught-horse about half an inch thick, 

 and less in proportion for a saddle-horse); and on that 



