EXPERIMENTS. 595 



effects follow the use of his lunette slioes, and Lafosse was 

 as well acquainted with the benefits to be derived from 

 his method of shoeing as Charlier ; while Osmer and 

 Clark were earnest in their protestations against the fashion 

 of removing the heels of the foot from the ground. 



Experiments are still being conducted on an extensive 

 scale on the continent, but particularly in France, in order 

 to test how far the ' ferrure periplantaire ' may be substituted 

 for the ordinary method. My own trials, though they 

 certainly have been on a limited scale, have proved 

 very satisfactory. Draught and saddle horses have been 

 shod, and in every case with advantage. The shoes em- 

 ployed weighed nearly one-half less than those previously 

 worn, and have been retained firmly in their bed by from 

 four to six small nails for each shoe. Two cases of foot- 

 lameness accompanied by very deformed hoofs and extraor- 

 dinarily contracted heels, have immensely improved by 

 using a shoe a little shorter than the ordinary rim — only 

 reaching to the quarters, and, being light and narrow, in- 

 crusted on a level with the sole. An Arab horse with small 

 feet, and whose frogs had been greatly injured by the na- 

 tive shoes he had been compelled to wear, has been shod for 

 several months with a strip of iron weighing, for each foot, 

 3^ ounces, and with wonderful benefit. The peculiar tend- 

 ency of the Eastern horses' feet to become contracted when 

 shod on the ordinary European principles, appears to have 

 been successfully evaded, and the frogs so diseased and 

 wasted previously, are regaining their normal size and firm- 

 ness. The horses shod with these imbedded rims of iron 

 have travelled with perfect freedom and safety on the hilly 



roads, often thickly covered by layers of sharp flints, in 



38* 



