542 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



views with regard to the elasticity of the foot, and nothing 

 could be more destructive to that organ than the adop- 

 tion of the rules he lays down for its management. To 

 carry them out was simply to produce the diseases he 

 attributes toother causes ; and it is difficult to understand 

 how Mr Youatt, who was in many respects an intelligent 

 veterinarian, should so far commit himself to the emission 

 of opinions which a little investigation would have shown 

 to be without the slightest foundation. His directions, 

 appearing as they did in a work of a popular character, 

 and which was to be found on nearly every horse-owner's 

 book-shelf, must have done an incalculable amount of 

 injury, and which could scarcely be compensated for by 

 the correctness of other details he gives on the matter of 

 shoeing. 



For more than fifty years, and even up to the present 

 day, the elasticity, or lateral-expansion and sole-descent 

 mania, may be said to have proved the curse of horse- 

 flesh, and the bete voire of farriery. The hoof was mu- 

 tilated in every possible manner to favour this all but 

 undemonstrable idea ; and the purblind individuals who 

 resorted to these practices evidently could not see the 

 damage they were inflicting, and which became all the 

 more serious the more exaggerated their expansion theory 

 was developed. Nearly all the ills the horse's foot was 

 liable to, it was believed, were due to the restraint the un- 

 yielding shoe imposed upon the lower border of the hoof, 

 as well as the constriction caused by the nails. To remedy 

 these every imaginable device was tried ; but nearly all 

 of them were as unreasonable as they were unfruitful. 

 Such had been the wonderful productions of Coleman 



