514 CAST-IRON SHOES, OBJECTION TO. [BOOK III. 



cessary to the secretion of new horn. As elasticity 

 is desirable in health, so is it injurious when disease 

 has once commenced : then it is the bar-shoe keeps 

 the sensible parts at rest. 



Concave-seated shoe, for convex soles, when 

 these cannot be reduced. This is nearly the same 

 shoe as recommended above, with a different name, 

 and the making whereof has been undertaken only 

 by the Jbest workmen, or with much reluctance. 

 To obviate this difficulty, a very neat cast iron 

 shoe (let not the reader smile) has been manu- 

 factured, as well as those of most other forms for 

 diseased feet, which may be obtained of Mr. Long, 

 the veterinary surgeons' instrument-maker in High 

 Holborn, and of the " patentee," Mr. Dudley, of 

 Soho Square. 



Cast iron shoes, however, have been at length 

 made of a metal that admits of being heated and 

 altered to the deviations which the feet of every 

 individual horse assumes, according to circum- 

 stances. The mode of accomplishing this, and the 

 manner of hardening the toe, &c. are taught in a 

 printed paper distributed by the vendors. Great 

 quantities of the casted shoes have been supplied 

 to the army, and may be made available to the 

 service in times of great exigency — for, what evils 

 do we not endure when warfare adds to our suffer- 

 ings ! But the well-known rigidity of this material, 

 being at entire variance with all our notions and 

 experience of elastic hoof, seems a bar to its general 

 introduction for healthy feet. Again, for hard- 



