LAMENESS IN HORSES. 6? 
work as well, with as without them : hence, the little or no at- 
tention paid to them, and the unscrupulousness with which one 
person sells or purchases a horse known to have frushes. Still, 
there are occasions on which lameness proceeds from frushes. 
A frushed horse may, at such times as he happens to step with 
his frog upon a stone, “drop;” this, however, is but momentary, 
and probably occurs but rarely. Nothing is more likely to pro- 
duce lameness from frushes than a sharp dressing. The horse 
is taken, perhaps, to be shod, going as well as usual ; but returns 
quite lame or tender-footed. The farrier is discovered to have 
used some sharp dressing to his frushy frogs, and all is accounted 
for. Dealers are very fond of mentioning as a cause of lameness 
the existence of a frush whenever a horse they are selling hap- 
pens to go lame or tender, when, all the while, they know or 
ought to know better. Frush in its worst stages will at times 
occasion lameness, and severe lameness too, simply from ex- 
posure to tread of the sensitive parts of the frog. As a general 
rule, however, frushes are not to be reckoned among the causes of 
lameness, and hence are not accounted as unsoundness. 
The Treatment of Frush — supposing it be deemed re- 
quisite or worth while to adopt any treatment at all — is to be 
regarded in two points of view : either the horse is intended 
to continue his work the while, or he is suffered to be laid up 
as a patient. Hundreds and thousands of horses having frushes 
— running frushes — are doing their work as though their feet 
were perfectly sound, and no heed whatever is taken of them ; 
save, perhaps, that some of them may have their frogs pared and 
“ dressed” every time they happen to be fresh shod ; though 
in general they derive little benefit therefrom, owing to the in- 
judicious and clumsy manner in which such dressings are per- 
formed. A leading principle in the treatment of frush neces- 
sarily is, or ought to be, the restoration, to the extent we are 
able, of the frog’s natural office, at the same time that we are 
eschewing all such causes as appear to have given rise to the 
disease. With a frog that has been raised off the ground so 
long that pressure to it can only be safely restored by degrees, 
w r e must rather have recourse to artificial means of pressure than 
think of lowering the heels all at once, much less of applying 
thin-heeled shoes or tips suddenly. Such a frog cannot bear 
pressure like this; though it will be much benefitted by filling 
the vacancy left between it and the ground when the shoe is on 
with tow and leather, or gutta percha, or other soft and impres- 
sible material, which will not only sustain any dressing we may 
desire to apply, but give for a time the required pressure. 
Sometimes a bar-shoe can be borne very well, and will give the 
requisite support ; where it cannot, cross-bars of iron hooping 
