FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO IMPROVE IT. 629 



basin^the inner border only resting on the ground, and 

 the whole strain of the animal's weight and burden, as 

 well as that incurred in violent exertion, was thrown en- 

 tirely upon the outer margin of the foot. This could 

 have but one result for the poor horse — disease and agony. 

 Routine has accompanied the art from the remotest 

 period ; it haunts it now ; there are but few workmen who 

 are able or who care to reason as to its application, or 

 its effects on the healthy functions of a most beautiful but 

 a most complicated organ. The art of shoeing is simply 

 traditional ; and however able an artisan may prove him- 

 self in the beaver or bee-like monotony of practical detail 

 which he has acquired by imitation from others, yet he 

 will never advance a step beyond, unless his intelligence 

 has been quickened by something besides the mere 

 mechanical knowledge he has acquired by laborious but 

 unstudied repetition. He is but a labourer or workman 

 pursuing a useful but unscientific occupation, unless he 

 can combine theory with practice, and extend his know- 

 ledge beyond the inert inorganic envelope, to the vital 

 and all-important structures within, and in this way main- 

 tain them in a healthy state by his art. It is no doubt 

 owing to this routine manner of treating the horse's foot 

 that no progress has been made in diminishing the natural 

 or acquired defects and diseases of this organ, which are 

 so numerous and prove so destructive. 



Previous to the beginning of the last century, it may 

 be said that the art of shoeing was traditional; the shoes 

 were clumsy, and, at a later period, even viciously con- 

 trived. No thought appears to have been paid to the 

 injurious influence shoes and paring might have on the 



