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 Eocker 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 

 web, 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 Eocker 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 dispense 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 



