ON SHOWING. 417 



starved; nevertheless, the calculus continued to diminish, and the lameness 

 altogether disappeared. He soon, however, passed into better hands. He was 

 bought by a farmer at Chalons, in whose service he long remained, in good con- 

 dition, and totally free from lameness. His last owner gave him the name of 

 Old Broken Leg *. 



Fbacturb of the coffin bone. — This is an accident of very rare occurrence, 

 and difficult to distinguish from other causes of lameness. The animal halts 

 very considerably — the foot is hot and tender— the pain seems to be exceedingly 

 great, and none of the ordinary causes of lameness are perceived. According to 

 Hurtrel D'Arboval, it is not so serious an accident as has been represented. 

 The fractured portions cannot be displaced, and in a vascular bone like this, the 

 union of the divided parts will be readily effected. 



Mr. Percivall very properly remarks, that, " buried as the coffin and navicular 

 bones are within the hoof, and out of the way of all external injury as well as 

 of muscular force, fracture of them cannot proceed from ordinary causes. It 

 is, perhaps, thus produced : —in the healthy foot, in consequence of the elas- 

 ticity of their connections, these bones yield or spring under the impression they 

 receive from the bones above, and thus are enabled to bear great weights, and 

 sustain violent shocks without injury ; but, disease in the foot is often found to 

 destroy this elasticity, by changing the cartilage into bone, which cannot receive 

 the same weight and concussion without risk of fracture. Horses that hava 

 undergone the operation of neurotomy more frequently meet with this accident 

 than others, because they batter their senseless feet with a force which, under 

 similar circumstances, pain would forbid the others from doing 1°." 



Fracture of the navicular bone has been sufficiently considered under 

 the article "Navicular Joint Disease," p. 391. 



Mr. Mayer sums up his account of the treatment of fractures in a way that 

 reflects much credit on him and the profession of which he is a member. " Let. 

 your remedies," says he, " be governed by those principles of science, those dic- 

 tates of humanity, and that sound discretion, which, while they raise the moral 

 and intellectual superiority of man, distinguish the master of his profession 

 from the bungling empiric %." 



CHAPTER XXI. 

 ON SHOEING. 



The period when the shoe began to be nailed to the foot of the horse is un- 

 certain. William the Norman introduced it into our country. 



We have seen, in the progress of our inquiry, that, while it affords to the 

 foot of the horse that defence which seems now to be necessary against the 

 destructive effects of our artificial and flinty roads, it has entailed on the animal 

 some evils. It has limited or destroyed the beautiful expansibility of the lower 

 part of the foot — it has led to contraction, although that contraction has not 

 always been accompanied by lameness — in the most careful fixing of the best 



*RecueildeMed.Vet.lS34.,p.7. Moapolojry t Percirall's Hippopathology, vol. i. page 



u offered for the introduction of cases like 272. 



this. The cause of science and of humanity t Vet. Trans, vol. i. p. 24fi. 

 is equally served. 



