274 



DISEASES OF THE HORSE'S FOOT 



have practised with considerable success — namely, that of 

 forced exercise. It appears to have been first brought into 

 prominence by Mr. Broad, of Bath, and the two terms 

 ' Forced Exercise and Rocker Shoes ' and ' Broad's Treat- 

 ment' have come to be synonymous. 



The Broad shoe is a shoe with a web of quite twice the 

 thickness of the animal's ordinary shoe, and has this web 

 gradually thinned from the toe backwards until at the heels 

 the shoe is at its thinnest (see Fig. 119). 



The excessive thickness of the shoe serves two purposes. 

 It allows of the requisite amount of slope being given to the 

 v/eb, and so enables the animal readily to throw himself 

 back on to his heels, a position in which, as we have already 



Fig. 119.— Seated Rocker Bar Shoe (Broad's) for Treatment 

 of Laminitis. 



indicated, he obtains the greatest ease. It also minimizes 

 to some extent the effects of concussion. 



With forced exercise, as practised by Mr. Broad, this 

 shoe is first applied, and the animal afterwards made to 

 walk upon soft ground, or even upon the roadway, for a 

 half an hour to an hour and a half three times a day. 



For our own part, we consider the shoe to be almost if 

 not quite superfluous, so far as its influence upon the 

 progress of the disease is concerned. We therefore dis- 

 pense with it, and have the animal exercised in his ordinary 

 shoes. To do this, the patient has sometimes to be severely 

 flogged into taking the first few steps. After that progress 

 gradually becomes easier. 



It has been said to be cruel. In so far as we knowingly, 

 and of set purpose, occasion the animal pain, cruel it 



