340 PUMICE FOOT. 
not of one belonging to the heavy cart-horse. All the delineations in- 
serted in this book are necessarily extreme cases; it is easy for the 
imagination to soften the evil when the mind is impressed with charac- 
teristics of the thing which is depicted; but not always so free from 
difficulty for an untutored imagination to magnify a reduced portrait. 
A weak foot has a long, slanting pastern; the hoof is marked by 
tings, showing the irregularity of the horny secretion, and the crust is 
broken in those places where nails have been driven to fasten on the 
shoe, proving the brittle nature of the hoof. 
Such are the outward signs of a weak hoof; but if the person behold- 
A WEAK FOOT. THE SOLE OF A WEAK FOOT. 
ing that sort of foot be in any doubt, let him lift it from the ground and 
inspect the sole. That part will also present peculiarities which can 
hardly fail to attract attention. 
The sole of a weak foot has a thin and irregular margin of crust; a 
flat surface; well-developed bars, and a healthy frog. Creatures with 
this kind of hoof, when brought to work upon hard roads or London 
stones, are apt to throw the foot down with heedless force at every step, 
and thereby soon to bruise the sole. These horses generally have high 
action, and this circumstance lends additional force to the blow; the 
injury reaches the coffin-bone, which begins to enlarge, and ultimately 
forces the horny sole outward. A pumice foot has the appearance of 
the member represented on the next page, though the reader must not 
anticipate the illustration will accurately indicate every stage of the 
disorder. 
Feet of the above description generally have very weak and brittle 
crusts; but the frog almost invariably is large and prominent; there is 
no kind of foot which so generally exhibits a healthy frog, and the next 
page shows an engraving of the ground surface of a pumice foot, in 
illustration of the fact. 
There are many methods proposed for amending a pumiced foot. 
One is the removal of the shoe; then allowing the deformed foot to 
stand a certain portion of time upon flat flag-stones. But as stamping 
the foot upon stones produced pumice foot, prolonged stress thereon 
