30 



answer.s about half as well. And we find also, that horses so turned up 

 go particularly firm and streng, so much so, that many have been iaduced 

 to continue this mode of shoeing ever after, and which I attribute to the 

 removal of the frog from too frequent contusion with the ground. 



To make more generally known a mode of treatment for Corns, as thej 

 are called, I have inserted in Plate 2. Fig. 10, a thick broad-webbed shoe 

 with the inner heel entirely cut off, which is a radical eure for corns as 

 long as it is complied with; this method I have practised now more than a 

 dozen years with great success and satisfaction, and the horse appears to 

 go as well, as far as I have seen, as when both the heels are of a length ; 

 this I State, to do away prepossessions and fears, which those who never 

 tried it would naturally have, and which I had myself on first using it. 

 But people are apt, as soon as the corns are thus reraoved, to hasten to 

 shoe again with the long shoe, by the advice of their grooms or the smiths, 

 and so bruise again this tender inter-tortional point of the sole, and ther» 

 say "corns are incurable." For more füll information of the nature of 

 these bruises, I may refer the reader to the article Cortis written by nie 

 about ten years ago, in Reeses Cyclopcedia* 



Havingconsidered the difTerent kinds of nailed shoes, and the probable 

 exteutof use of the natural foot, I now proceed to describea new kind of 

 defence on a different principle, which if carried into general use, will re- 

 move the use of nails altogether, and bring the practice of the defence of 

 the hoof within the limits of a simple domestic process, in which the rider 

 himself may perform, and not subject himself to the abuses, conceited 

 ignorance, and offen impertinence, of those who are at present occupied 



* Tbat I may omit nothing whicli tends to illustrate the subject of the Foot and Shoeing, I may here 

 State that my friend J. Turner of Croydon has lately observed a farther mischief, which attends at times 

 contracted feet, and that is, that the tendon of the perforans muscU, or back sinew, is found adhering to 

 the under surface of the Shuttle Bone, That such a consequcnce should ensue from the constrained and 

 motionless State into which the foot is reduced by the overpowering iron is not to be wondered at, and 

 it is perhaps an effect of the upward pressure of the sole and posterior parts of the foot against this 

 tendon that occasions their union. But having obtained a considerable number of contracted feet from 

 the slaughter-house ; on examining them, I did not find it to have taken place in more than one in 

 sixteen ; that some other cause besides contraction appears to be necessary to this effect, perhaps in- 

 Haroniation from strains, or ring bones, or even bad thrushes, may influence its production. 



With Street-Nails, or Kennel-Nails, as they are called, thenail passing through the frog and pierc- 

 iiig the Tendon, occasions also its inflammalion and adhesion ; but such cases have nothing to do with 

 uhocing or its cflects. 



