SEEDY TOE. 31 



What percentage of horse owners accompany their 

 horses to the forge and see them shod ? and, what is 

 of great importance, see their feet when the shoes are 

 removed? They would be astonished, for instance, 

 to find amongst many horses that, when the toe had 

 been pared and rasped, they would be able to discover 

 that the outer layer of the wall or crust did not make 

 one body with the inner layer, as it should do if the 

 foot were healthy, but is separated from it by dry 

 fibre. This is the way in which seedy toe begins ; 

 and the joint causes of it are, standing on dirty 

 litter, the use of hoof ointments, stopping with cow- 

 dung, &c., burning the seat of the shoe with a hot 

 shoe, slipping down hill, &c. 



If the owner makes a remark thereon to the 

 farrier, he will be told that 'many good horses are 

 naturally like that ; but it does not hurt them if 

 they are well shod.' Let them look at the feet of 

 a colt, or of a brood mare, that has been running 

 unshod at grass, and see whether they can find any- 

 thing like it. They certainly cannot ; for no unshod 

 horse was ever known to have such a thing, any 

 more than corns (from which unshod horses are also 

 entirely free). Remarking on this separation of the 

 outer and inner horn of the wall, Mayhew says: 

 ' Pathology has indirectly recognised the intention 

 of their function, by acknowledging that condition 

 to be a state of disease, wherein the two kinds of 

 horn are separated. Such a division is known as 

 seedy toe, and as false quarter; and the foot is 

 recognised as weakened when such a want of union 



