VETERINARY EDUCATION. 
288 
suiting from shoeing in the hands of unscientific men. Thousands 
of the East India Company’s horses were yearly cast for death 
because their feet were incurably diseased. Thrush, and its 
sequel, canker, corns, grease, and all those various disorgani- 
zations induced by mal-treated diseases of parts within the hoof, 
consigned thousands of them to the knife ; whereas, since the 
eye of science has guided the hand of the smith, not a single 
horse has been lost to that company through the diseases I have 
just named, and many of them are entirely unknown.’ 
“ Just look at the ignorance that is often displayed in this 
country, in the management of the foot, and tell me, is there no 
need of reform ! How often do we see the base totally cut away, 
the frog or sole pared so thin that the animal is liable to be 
injured by the first hard substance he treads on. I have seen 
the foot mangled and cut to fit the shoe, and, what is still worse, 
the latter applied red hot. This destructive system dries up the 
natural moisture of the hoof and sole, prevents the egress of 
morbific matter, and finally producing disorganization, incurable 
contraction, and lameness. Some men suppose that a horse’s 
hoof is an insensible piece of mechanism, and when they see the 
smith cutting off large slices, and applying red hot plates of iron, 
it would seem to justify such a conclusion. I grant that the 
horny covering is void of sensibility; but we must recollect that 
it serves principally as a defence to the sensitive parts within, 
and that it is endowed with elasticity, which enables it, in some 
degree, to yield to the impulse of those sensitive parts in the 
various motions of the animal. Hence the direct tendency of 
the hot shoe is to contract the horny covering, and, of course, the 
sensitive parts will be more or less compressed. You will find, 
on an examination of the foot, that it is a wonderful and delicate 
piece of mechanism. The inside of the hoof is lined with a 
beautiful set of laminae ; these receive a similar set, situated on 
the external portion of the coffin-bone. The number of laminae 
on these two surfaces have been computed at one thousand ; 
each lamina has two sides and an edge — making three thousand 
articulatory surfaces, — giving to each foot a surface of four 
square feet. Hence it follows that a horse stands on sixteen 
square feet of surface, within the four hoofs. So wisely, how- 
ever, is every part of the foot contrived by the Divine Artist, 
that when it is properly managed, judiciously pared, and the 
shoe properly adapted to it, and when employed only by a 
humane man, the foot may be preserved as long as the animal 
is worth using. Hence, if the veterinary art be estimated as 
beneficial and important, in exact ratio to the value of the noble 
animals to whose well-being all its objects are directed, then 
