8 Among Men and Horses. 



As the foot had been pared down to its utmost limit of safety, 

 the ill-constructed nails, which were not infrequently made of 

 defective and unsuitable iron, were liable under the blows of 

 the hammer, to take unexpected directions ; to split in two, 

 one part coming out in correct position to be clinched, the 

 other penetrating the sensitive tissues ; and to perform other 

 eccentric and hurtful feats. The careful smith had therefore 

 to drive the nails in fear, if not in trembling, and to anxiously 

 listen to the fall of the hammer on the nail head, ready to 

 stay his hand and draw the nail, if a dull sound, which would 

 indicate the entrance of the nail into soft tissue, were emitted. 

 The necessity for the detection of this dull sound was the first 

 and only useful hint I received about shoeing in the village 

 smithy. The general adoption during late years of machine- 

 made nails, to say nothing of machine-made shoes, has im- 

 mensely improved the shoeing of horses, which now leaves 

 but little to be desired. The arbitrary and often unjust law 

 of making forge-masters responsible for the 'pricking' of 

 horses shod at their smithies, despite the proof that there had 

 been no neglect in skill or care, no doubt works well in the 

 advancement of this art. Another point of veterinary science 

 in which we have greatly improved on the practice of our 

 ancestors, is the treatment of wounds, which they were wont 

 to bathe, poultice and stimulate by the application of various 

 ' oils,' with the object of producing what they were pleased to 

 call ' laudable pus.' We, on the contrary, have learned that 

 suppuration, being accompanied by the destruction of valu- 

 able tissue, is the very thing which we ought to try to prevent 

 in such cases, and accordingly we adopt as a rule, ' dry dress- 



ing. 



At the time of which I am writing, eye diseases and con- 

 sequently blindness were very common among Irish horses, 

 owing to the horribly unsanitary conditions under which 

 they were kept. In many instances, the horse's bed was 

 a clung heap, and in all, special precautions were taken 

 to prevent the existence of free ventilation. Not alone was 



