DOUGLAS' COMPOUND GUTTAPERCHA SHOE. 171 



It is allowed that the cause of this disease proceeds 

 from the violent exercise over hard roads, and that 

 young horses are most liable to it : of course, all 

 combined with heavy wide-webbed shoes, fastened 

 on to mutilated feet.' 



As a remedy or a prevention of concussion, Mr. 

 Douglas proposed to let guttapercha into a dove- 

 tailed groove on the face of the shoe. At the best, 

 this would have been only a partial remedy, but the 

 shoe never came into use. No innovations find easy 

 acceptance ; and why ? Mayhew solves this con- 

 undrum, when he tells us that ' it is in their own 

 interests that farriers make no improvements ! ' 



The crippled screws of which we are now speak- 

 ing would always be wanting to rest one fore-foot 

 and one hind one at one and the same time, and 

 alternating them frequently, besides drooping their 

 heads in despondency, when they were at a stand. 

 Here comes in another purpose of the bearing-rein, 

 which is that of ' pulling them together,' and thus 

 hiding from the ignorant the infirmities and suffer- 

 ings in their feet, by the application of counter- 

 irritation. Thus they are supposed to make a 

 better show when drawn up in Kegent Street, or at 

 Lancaster Grate, or, say, even at the door of Willis's 

 Rooms, when an anti-vivdsection congress is sitting. 

 If only for the sake of decency, we should show a 

 little consistency. Let it be understood that we are 

 not arguing either jpro cr con, on the question of 

 vivisection of the lower animals ; we have our own 

 opinion on the subject, but we prefer to stand in 



