704 
fective in size, to touch the ground, provided 
a too great tenderness and sensibility in the 
frog, a very common case even in a co’.t, do 
not forbid it. In that circumstance, attended 
by a soreness or defect in the quarters also, the 
shoe-heels must he of sufficient thickness 
to do the office of the frog, and preserve the 
just level of the foot ; for with reduced quar- 
ters and shoe- heels, and no frog to support 
the tendon, the latter must suffer great dis- 
tension even from the mere natural weight 
of the horse ; and in this way, from a forced 
attempt at improvement of the frog, by cer- 
tain speculators, great numbers of horses 
were instantly lamed. Our common far- 
riers, however, have usually run into the op- 
posite delect, and by extremely thick shoe- 
heels, and even the addition of calkins to the 
fore-shoes, have thrown the weight of the 
horse chiefly upon his toes. They are 
doubtless much improved in their practice in 
most parts of England, but in some, the old 
dangerous and destructive form of shoe is 
still retained; long, broad, and convex in 
the external surface, and concave next the 
foot. Such is precisely the common shoe of 
the draught-horse even in the metropolis, 
where one would suppose common sense,, in 
the course of more than fifty years, must 
have had time to operate. Yet we lately 
witnessed the heart-rending exertions of 
four noble animals to draw up Holborn-hill 
a most ponderous load, the stones presenting 
a surface of glass, to the slippery convex, 
or rather globular surfaces of the horse-shoes. 
It is impossible but these willing animals must 
have ineffectually wasted more than half 
their powers, that is to say, the strength of 
the four was reduced to less than that of two, 
by the senseless form of their shoes ; and we 
represented to the driver, the strong proba- 
bility that a quarter of an hour of such ex- 
cessive exertion, might injure the horses in 
a greater degree, than six months of fair and 
regular although hard labour. Shoes should 
be made of the best iron well hammer-hard- 
ened, but not too much softened by the fire. 
Of such stuff, the shoe should be as light as 
the horse could bear ; but it must be remem- 
bered, there must be a sufficient substance of 
iron in proportion to the weight of the horse, 
or in travelling, he will suffer from jarring or 
concussion of the bones of the foot. Nar- 
rowness of the web of the shoe is indubitably 
an advantage, b it some feet require and 
must have more cover. The length of the 
shoe in general, should approach, never ex- 
ceed, the extremity of the heel, and should 
decrease in width at the heel, excepting a 
need to defend weak quarters. The surface 
of the shoe presented to the earth should ever 
and without exception be flat, and even when 
practicable, hammered somewhat concave 
or hollow, which gives a firmer tread on 
slippery surfaces. This is a very old idea, 
and although professor Saintbel did not suc- 
ceed in reducing it to practice with thin 
shoes, it can meet with no obstruction in the 
heavy shoes of cart-horses, which are how- 
ever always made far heavier than neces- 
sary, from being forged of inferior materials, 
a consideration for the opulent proprietors of 
draught-horses. The shoe must rest en- 
tirely on the wall or crust, never on the sole, 
on which the pressure would occasion lame- 
ness. To this end, that part of the shoe ap- 
plied to the crust must be flat, consisting of a 
FARRIERY. 
rim or margin according in breadth, with the 
crust, and of equal thickness around the out- 
side of the rim, in the middle of which ex- 
actly the nail-holes are to be made; from 
this margin internally, towards the sole, the 
shoe must he formed gradually thinner, that 
it may not press upon the sole. Osmer far- 
ther directed, and it has been invariably fol- 
lowed by the best practitioners, that the shoe 
should be made to stand somewhat wider at 
the extremity of each heel, than the foot 
itself; otherwise, as the foot grows in length, 
the heel of the shoe, in a short time, gets 
within the heel of the horse; which pressure 
often breaks the crust, and produces lame- 
ness, perhaps a corn. The practice of fitting 
the shoes red-hot upon the horse’s foot, is by- 
no means so harmless as smiths represent, 
when they are reproved for it: it is highly 
injurious to thin weak feet. The bar or cir- 
cular shoe, lightly and judiciously formed, 
is a most excellent protection to weak heels 
and frogs ; such feet will grow and increase 
in substance under the bar-shoe ; and pro- 
bably, light and tender-footed horses, used 
in quick draught upon the roads, should al- 
ways have therefore feet shod in that mode. 
The running thrush is a discharge issuing 
from the cleft of the frog, either natural or 
accidental. Our late writers are generally 
in an error in supposing this defect to be 
always occasioned by improper treatment of 
the part ; since some horses with their frogs 
untouched, and of the full size, are liable 
always to the discharge when full-fed and 
standing long in stable with^til due exercise; 
moreover others, with the frog constantly 
cut away and treated in the mode supposed 
to be productive of the complaint, are yet 
entirely free from it. Ablutions, cleans- 
ing, and drying remedies are generally 
proper, and in the constitutional case, purges 
and also alteratives. Interfering, knocking, 
the speedy-cut, or crossing the legs or inter- 
fering in the gallop particularly, arise from 
naturally faulty conformation. Knocking 
is applied to striking the pastern-joints ; the 
speedy-cut to the knees, against and beneath 
which the hoof strikes in action, particularly 
in a speedy trot. The shoeing-smith is ge- 
nerally supposed able to effect far more 
by his art, in this case, than he really can ; 
and we meet in the French writers, and in 
those who have copied them without the 
benefit of practical information, much flou- 
rish, and a multiplicity of scientiiic rules 
which are totally to obviate the defects in 
question ; tb which one simple practical 
answer will be quite sufficient: — a horse ir- 
regularly formed in his lower extremities 
will wound his joints in action, unshod and 
with his bare hoofs, even were they reduced. 
A horse with the toe irregularly turned out 
or in, will strike the opposite joint, in one 
case, with the heel, in the other with the 
toe. Assuredly the defect may be palliated, 
never thoroughly remedied, by certain well- 
known methods of forming and fixing on the 
shoes. The ingenious Osmer considering 
this defect radically proposed measures to 
counteract the common crookedness of the 
pastern-joints in colts,- a speculation to which 
we refer the curious. Improvement in shoe- 
ing the labouring ox also claims the atten- 
tion of the veterinarian. 
Phlebotomy or blood-letting . — The old 
writers enumerate thirty-one veins ia the 
body of the horse, in which lie may be let 
blood, but the neck and plate-veins are most 
commonly opened lor that purpose. It has 
been lately disputed to which method of 
operation the preference is due, the common 
one of the fleam and blood-stick, or that of 
the lancet. The latter method was known 
to the old farriers, although as rarely prac- 
tised by them as by the modern. The fre- 
quent accidents consequent on striking with 
the blood-stick, and perhaps dividing the 
vein, and causing a dangerous tumour in the 
neck, are notorious. Hut in opposition t» 
the use of the lancet, it is said to require 
more skill ; and that the horse, on first feeling 
the point, unless the desired effect be instan- 
taneous, shifts the position of his neck and 
prevents success in the operation. Thus 
adroitness in the use of the lancet and instant 
execution, seem the only desiderata, by 
which to obtain a most beneficial improve- 
ment in practice. By some this advantage 
has been obtained, and they prefer the 
common lancet used in human phleboto- 
my. The horse, from past experience of 
perhaps repeated strokes, is ever shy of the 
farrier and the blood-stick. Surely even the 
prick of the lancet must occasion less alarm ; 
and were the horse moderately twitched, 
or even his head made fast, he might he held 
sufficiently steady. Mr. Clark (see his 
book), shews the danger in making the liga- 
ture round the horse’s neck, previously to 
sticking and cutting, the orifice ; but in the 
use of the lancet, this is not so material, and 
the ligature may be slackened, upon the 
completion of the orifice. Should it be ne- 
cessary to pin the wound as usual, care should 
be taken not to raise the skin from the vein, 
whence the blood may flow into the cellular 
substance between the vein and the skin, and 
form a lump or tumour, commonly called a 
swelled neck. Animals should never be bled 
at random, as is too often the case at this day, 
but by measure; nor is the practice lately 
introduced of drawing such large quantities, 
amounting to upwards of a gallon of blood, 
from a horse at one time, either rational or 
ultimately beneficial, in any case. 'The 
most proper place for making the opening in 
the jugular veins, is where the teguments are 
thinnest, which is about a hand-breadth from 
the head, and about one inch below the 
branching, or joining of the vein which comes 
from the lower jaw, and which may be dis- 
tinctly seen when any pressure is made on 
the main branch of the vein. In general, 
blood-letting should be reserved for inflam- 
matory and critical cases, and nothing can 
be more absurd than the custom of regular 
periodical bleeding, whether in man or horse ; 
neither bleeding nor diuretics can be the 
sufficient substitute of purgatives, when the 
plain intent is to remove obstruction and 
inflammation by unlading the bowels. 
The use of rowels, setons, and blis- 
ters, to promote discharges from the body 
of the horse, has been long established. The 
cautery is also an instrument of prime conse- 
quence in veterinary practice ; but the firing 
the legs of horses is yet performed by the gen- 
erality of common farriers in a heavy-handed, 
rough, and barbarous way ; the old method 
of drawing cross lines ought to be abolished. 
Indeed the general rude and unfeeling modes 
of treating this animal, by whose services 
mankind are so much benefited, form a pro- 
