ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES. 591 



comparatively trifling weight of their shoes, the horses 

 acquired a lightness of movement they did not exhibit 

 previously. 3. They gained an extraordinary ^solidity on 

 the pavement, and did not slip. 4. Many horses which 

 always had corns and sandcracks, and could not be used 

 without bar-shoes, spontaneously recovered from their 

 infirmities after the application of this shoe. 5. Those 

 frogs which were before shrunken and etrangle\ became 

 considerably developed, a fact which proves that this shoe 

 is perfectly adapted to the physiological movements of 

 the foot. 



It will be seen that these horses were excessively over- 

 weighted with the ordinary shoe. 



Professor Bouley, perhaps the highest veterinary 

 authority in France, and a gentleman of great scientific 

 attainmients, laid much stress on the particular advantages 

 to be derived from this large diminution in weight. He 

 had given the system of shoeing his careful attention, 

 particularly after the modifications it had undergone, and 

 appears to have been much impressed with its favourable 

 results, notwithstanding its having deviated from the 

 rigorous application of the fundamental principle of 

 rational farriery he had laid down : that at each renewal 

 of the shoes, the foot be brought, by the aid of instru- 

 ments, to the length and form which it would have had if 

 the animal had not been shod, and the horn had been 

 worn in a natural manner. He believed the disadvantages 

 of the ' ferrure Charlier ' were more than counterbalanced 

 by its advantages. He noted that, in general, the feet of 

 all the horses so shod acquired a tendency to become 

 enlarged and regain their primitive form, a circumstance 



