LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
484 
the first thing that happens is, that its spread becomes oblite- 
rated, after which it alters, though almost imperceptibly, from 
a circular to an ovoid figure, and at length becomes a contracted 
foot. We must not, however, infer from this that shoeing is 
the sole cause of contraction, any more than that every horse 
who wears a shoe must necessarily have a contracted foot. 
Were this the case, the hind feet as well as the fore, would 
exhibit contraction ; and this, we know, they never do. Shoe- 
ing fails to bring about this end in cases in which the expansive 
powers of the foot are powerful enough to overcome any counter- 
active influence, as is the case, from the impetus of their action, 
with the hind feet ; as also, from the natural weakness of its 
fibre, and consequent feeble power to contract, is the case with 
the naturally spreading or flat foot. But m the foot in which, 
from the strong and exuberant fibre of its hoof, from the height 
of the heels, the concavity of the sole, and the little or no 
pressure there is made upon the frog, there is evidently a dis- 
position to contraction, shoeing will very influentially operate in 
bringing about such anormal alteration in its form. I have no 
objection to adopt, on this part of my subject, the first three 
words of the motto used by Bracy Clark, 
Naturam ferro expellis; 
though I cannot add, usque dura non recurrit, because I feel 
that Nature, up to an incalculable advanced period of time, pre- 
serves, and if released from her fetters — the shoe — manifests, her 
power of returning. 
The Absence of Pressure to the Frog is another indi- 
rect cause of contraction, though one of inferior efficacy to the 
former : it was such a favourite, however, with Coleman, that 
he placed it in the foremost rank of causation : his argument 
being mainly based upon the notorious fact, that horses possess- 
ing sound and prominent frogs exhibit open heels, while such 
hoofs as have their frogs shrunk or diseased or cut away, be- 
come contracted. Such reasoning, however, specious as it ap- 
peared at the time, is untenable, inasmuch as it is grounded in 
error. Coleman took the case of shod horses, and, as far as 
they went, he found, with few exceptions, that, so long as the 
frog was preserved sound and prominent, contraction was effectu- 
ally opposed, whereas it often supervened upon faultiness or 
defalcation of frog. But, did he look for, and if he had would 
he have found, the same result happening in horses without 
shoes? Rather, would he not have found that horses’ feet, 
even though they were contracted, and had diseased frogs or 
hardly any frogs at all, supposing the shoes were taken off 
them, under the freedom from restraint their structures enjoyed 
