537 



be departed from. The nail >ioles should not be punched too fine — that 

 is, too uear the outside edge of the web of the shoe (this is a very com- 

 mon failing of '' keg shoes"); if punched coarser the nails will take a 

 thicker and lowrr hold of the walls, and in this way obviate their having 

 to be driven so high up as to approach dangerously near the seusitiv^e 

 structures. Two of the commonest errors in shoeing are using too many 

 nails and these of an altogether unnecessary size, and then driving them 

 too high up into the walls. If a perfectly level bearing has been ob- 

 tained—as ought to be the case — it is astonishing how few and how 

 small nails will hold the shoe firmly in its place; but let the fitting be 

 carelessly done, then, no matter how the shoe may be naiied on, but a 

 short time elapses ere the clinches open and the shoe works loose. 

 When we bear in mind that the wall of the hoof consists of a number of 

 hair-like tubes cemented together, and that each tube is one of an infinite 

 number of minute canals, which diffuse throughout the horn a fluid that 

 nourishes and preserves it, it will be readily understood that each nail 

 driven into the wall deflects those little tubules, probably absolutely 

 closing those with which it comes into actual contact and hurtfully com- 

 pressing those lying half way between the nails, thus impairing if not 

 destroying their utility and cutting off the supplyof a material necessary 

 to the foot's existence. If we could dispense with nails altogether our 

 horses' feet would be immeasurably better off. This, unfortunately we 

 apparently can not do, but we have it iu our power to minimize an evil 

 which, at present, at all events, we can not entirely avoid. There has 

 recently been patented in England a nailless horseshoe, for which the 

 patentees claim extraordinary excellence. I have not yet been able to 

 see one of these shoes, but if they will enable us to dispense with the use 

 of nails they will confer a priceless boon on horseflesh generally. From 

 the description given by the patentees I fail to see, however, how the 

 shoes can be kept sufficiently firmly iu place, nor can I glean from the 

 same source, that the new method of attachment (by means of a metal 

 baud and studs) is equally efficacious with the old, or less injurious. 



There is, however, one shoe, without some allusion to which any essay 

 of this kind would be incomplete, namely, the " Charlier shoe," in- 

 vented some years ago by M. Oharlier, a wellkuown veterinary sur- 

 geon of Paris, France, which has never, in my opinion, received either 

 the attention or trial its merits deserve. Common sense and science 

 alike indorse it, and were the system to become more generally known 

 in this country I venture to assert that there is an extremely large num- 

 ber of cases iu which it would be found both appropriate and benefi- 

 cial. For this reason I will briefly describe it. The shoes used are 

 about one-third the weight of an ordinary shoe, and less than one-half 

 the width. In preparing the foot for the shoe and sole, frog and bars 

 are left, as they ought to be, absolutely untouched, and a groove is cut, 

 by means of a knife specially designed for the purpose, in the wall, not 

 high enough to reach above the sole level, and less than the thickness 



