16 . THE WALL AND SOLE. 



and press equally on them and the wall, would be preferable to one 

 which brought the whole of the bearing on the outside crust. The 

 former would distribute the blow over a wider surface, while the lat- 

 ter would confine it to the part most keenly sensitive of any portion 

 of the foot. 



The wall and sole are fastened together by agglutination, and 

 maceration will separate them. Corns are produced at the junction 

 and in the angles which the bars form ; and bruises, at times, result 

 in serious diseases. From the bruise the living tissues are affected 

 and pus is created. This cannot work through the honiy covering, 

 and the suppuration has to find vent at the coronet. Oftentimes a 

 horse, after being veiy lame, recovers when the opening takes place, 

 and the general verdict is that a gravel has been embedded in the 

 foot and worked througli, as all foreign substances have to take this 

 upwiird direction before they can be got rid of. Bruise, or a suppur- 

 ating corn caused by the impact of the shoe, is the true explanation 

 of the trouble. AmoDg several other shoes which I have experi- 

 mented with was one formed with two plates, between which was a 

 stratum of rubber. Finding that the elastic material placed between 

 the shoe and the foot was liable to misplacement, the plan was adopted 

 of fixing it by two plates. The trial was satisfactory, and the benefit 

 of this shoe was evident. Acting like the spring under the load on 

 the wagon or car, it moderated the concussion and broke the jar. 

 But the difficulty remained, the trouble arising from the stress which 

 was put on the wall. 



To get the amount of metal which would withstand the wear of 

 macadamized roads, necessarily made this shoe thick, and the foot 

 was raised too high from the ground. And finding' that the concus- 

 sion was only detrimental at the posterior portion of the foot, a .shoe 

 was made like the cut on the following page. 



The gi'ound surface, which is shown by Figure 1, was made wide at 

 the heels, giving a full bearing on the wall and bars, and the elastic 

 material was confined to this part of the shoe as shown by Fig. 2. 

 The covering of all of the foot, save the frog and so much of the sole as 

 is anterior to it gave — as nearly as possible — a natural bearing, and 

 by extending the surface the elastic material was increased in volume. 



