STRAIN OF BACK SINEWS. 11 



wards against its will, until the fore and hind feet 

 slipping in the same direction, it came down upon 

 its left side with a crash. The thought of what 

 agony that poor beast must have suffered, even 

 before it fell, has haunted me ever since, and know- 

 ing if the horse had been able to use the supple 

 elastic cushion nature has provided its feet with to 

 prevent their slipping — namely, the frog — it could 

 easily have controlled the pressure from behind, I 

 resolved if possible to direct public attention to the 

 present cruel and unwarrantable system of shoeing 

 horses.' 



His book is full of valuable remarks on the horse's 

 foot and on the evils of shoeing as commonly prac- 

 tised ; but he missed the mark in failing to recog- 

 nise (even supposing that the shoe he proposes 

 might not admit of so much slipping) that the 

 horse would still injure his feet and legs by the 

 immense strain put on them in his violent exertions 

 to hold back the waggon — a luork that should he 

 done for hhn. Perhaps he was not acquainted with 

 the brake, and was labouring under the delusion that 

 all that mechanical skill could effect towards the 

 breaking of momentum by friction had been done 

 by making one wheel skid. Mayhew, in the chapter 

 which he dedicates to ' strain of the flexor tendon,' 

 says that ' this is chiefly present in the shaft horse 

 that has to descend a steep declivity, with a load 

 behind it. The weight would roll down the descent ; 

 this the horse has to prevent, and the chief stress is 

 then upon the back tendons.' Elsewhere he states 



