130 



DISEASES or THE HOKSE'S FOOT 



(/) By turning out to Grass. — Where the expense of keep 

 is no object, a return of contracted feet to the normal 

 may be brought about by removing the shoes and turning 

 the animal out to pasture, thus giving the feet the advan- 

 tages to be derived from a more or less continuous opera- 

 tion of the normal movements of expansion and contraction. 

 In this case the treatment must extend from three to four, 

 or possibly six months. 



2. Bij the Use of Some Form of Expansion Shoe. 

 (a) Smith's. — For many years past continental writers 

 have been practising this method. So far as we know, how- 



^ 



Fig. 73.— Smith's Expansion Shoe seen from 'its Ground Surface 



AND FROM THE SiDE. 



a, The screw, with a fine-cut thread ; h, nut which travels along it ; c, a 

 hollow thimble into which the screw passes at one end, the other being 

 cut out V-shapcd to catch into a slot {(/) on the shoe ; e, c, the grip* for 

 the bars, the length and direction of which depend upon the shape of the 

 foot ; /, /, the counter-sunk rivets forming the hinge (/') ; i/, the counter- 

 sunk rivet of the expanding piece. 



ever, Lieutenant-Colonel Fred Smith was the first English 

 veterinarian to use a shoe of his own devising, and to report 

 on its effects. This shoe we will, therefore, give first mention. 

 The above figure, with its accompanying letterpress, 

 sufficiently explains the nature of the shoe. In fitting the 



* The inventor of this shoe uses the word ' grip ' to denote what, in 

 describing other expansion shoes, we term the ' clip ' (H. C. E.). 



