547 



assists in maintaiuing the natural expansion of its hoi-ny ambit ; that 

 is to say, it does so in its natural state, but the drawing-knife's touch 

 is fatal to it. Once cut and carved and deprived of pressure, those 

 very acts cause it to shrink, dry, and harden, and at once lose those 

 very attributes which constitute its usefulness to the foot. Robbed 

 of its elasticity and resilience, it is incapable of discharging its allot- 

 ted functions — both as a cushion and as an expander it is a dead fail- 

 ure; indeed it is worse, as in its altered character it is now a menace 

 instead of protection, a bane rather than a boon to the foot that 

 wears it. 



The destruction of this important factor having been thus provided 

 for, the operator probably next turns his attention to the sole, which, 

 by all traditions of the craft, must be pared down until only a thin 

 film of soft, partially formed horn is left to protect the living struc- 

 tures vv-ithin against injury from the substances with which the foot 

 necessarily comes in contact. Xor does the mischief stop here. The 

 sole itself, or what is left of it, consists now of soft, moist, half-formed 

 horn, which dries and shrinks on exposure to the air, and thereby 

 entails a further and a still more serious injury on the foot. 



We have seen in the preceding chapters how the sole is secreted by 

 the velvety tissue dependent from the membrane which invests the 

 pedal bone, the minute, hollow, fibrous processes of which penetrate it 

 and minister to its support. In the mutilated, shrunken sole these 

 delicate fibers are pinched in the lessened caliber of the pores; the 

 source of supply is cut off, and the process of repair retarded if not 

 absolutely arrested. There seems to be a fascination about this work 

 of destruction, and the incompetent workman next addresses himself 

 to the self-imposed task of improving upon nature by removing the 

 bars and what he calls, on the Incus a noii hicendo principle, "open- 

 ing" the heels, a process Avhich, in plain language, means opening a 

 road for them to close over. On this poor, maimed foot a shoe, often 

 many sizes too small, is tacked, and the rasp is most likely called into 

 requisition to reduce the foot to fit the shoe; for although it is appar- 

 ently of little moment w^hether the shoe fits the foot, it is indispen- 

 sably necessary that the foot should, somehow- or other, be got to fit 

 the shoe, and horseshoeing, like other arts, must needs sacrifice on 

 the altar of appearances. It is sad that art and nature should so often 

 be at variance, and that what satisfies the one should outrage the 

 demands of the other. 



The foot is now shod and protected from undue wear, to be sure, 

 but at what a sacrifice! Robbed of its cushion, its natural expander; 

 its lateral braces removed; its sole mangled and its natural repair 

 arrested; the hairlike fibers which make up the horny wall crushed, 

 defiected, and their nutritive function impeded by an unnecessary 

 number of nails; robbed by the rasp of its cortical layer of natural 

 varnish, which retains the moisture secreted by the economy, the 



