104 OF THE DISEASES 



A horse may brush or cut either with the shoe, 

 with the clenches, with the hoof, or with the 

 fetlock. 



When the injury is done by the shoe, the farrier 

 ought without much difficulty to be able to set the 

 matter to rights. The ordinary causes will be 

 found either in bad fitting, or in shoes becoming 

 loose and shifting, or in their being worn beyond 

 the proper time. In other cases, however, in order 

 to avoid contact, it will be necessary to underweave 

 or even narrow the web of the shoe on the inside 

 quarter, and to leave the crust projecting over it. 

 In more severe cases it may be necessary to make 

 the outside of the shoe thinner than the inside. 

 The effect of this alteration will be very slightly to 

 alter the gait, and so prevent collision. It is to be 

 observed that the collision nearly always takes 

 place with the anterior portion of the quarter of 

 the shoe or hoof. 



When the injury is caused by a clench, the fault 

 may lie in its never having been hammered down 

 tight ; but it will more frequently be found that the 

 clench has risen, on account of the shoe having 

 sunk into the foot. The tendency of shoes resting 

 on a rasped and therefore weakened crust, to sink 

 into the foot, has already been explained under the 

 head of clenches in paragraph 58. 



Those cases which arise from contact of the 

 hoof are more difficult to remedy. It will be 



