382 
EXPERIMENTS ON THE 
horse is kept tied up in his stall nearly all day long, standing on 
hot litter, and this stall, for the caprice of fashion or to give the 
animal an appearance of greater height, is made very sloping to 
the front. This sloping of the stall is directly contrary to the posi¬ 
tion of the legs and feet, and the only way in which the animal 
can stand at all easy to himself is by either hanging back in the 
stall, or standing sideways, or by having his legs more under his 
body than he would do if he were standing on a plain surface. 
By standing in this position, the weight is thrown on the anterior 
parts of the foot, and the back parts are thrown out of use. The 
frog becomes dry, hard, and inelastic; the horny box also partakes 
of the same unyielding character; and the animal is in that state 
that he is liable at any moment to become the victim of navicular 
disease from pressure being applied to the hard insensible frog, and 
thus bruising- the tendon passing under the navicular bone; and to 
a host of evils too numerous to enter into. It is thus too frequently 
we find the want of work producing disease; and I consider that 
attention to these points is most necessary to the well-being of the 
animal. The farm horse also enjoys a certain immunity from 
lameness which the high-bred horse does not; and this consists in 
the pace of work. The agricultural horse can work all day long at 
a pace of from two to three miles an hour, and upon the most 
favourable ground to keep the feet in health; whereas the high¬ 
bred riding horse has to perform his journey at a pace four times 
as fast, and the quicker the pace the more frequent the jar and 
concussion. We must not, therefore, wonder when by breeding 
we have got a surprisingly quick animal, that too frequently he is 
the subject of lameness; for if by breeding we have increased the 
motive powers two or three times over, we have not in any way 
increased the foot and the means of resisting this concussion, and 
our stabled horse does not usually enjoy the advantages of constant 
pressure and moisture, which tend to keep the feet healthy. It is 
for these reasons that our best horses are too frequently the sub¬ 
jects of lameness. 
I may now briefly sum up what these experiments tend to 
prove :— 
1st. That there is no appreciable lateral expansion of the quar¬ 
ters of the foot at the lower circumference under any circumstances 
of shoeing, the only expansion which takes place being by gradual 
growth. 
2d. That when a horse is shod with a shoe laid evenly to the 
heels, the motion that takes place is a slight descent of the ante¬ 
rior part of the frog and the adjacent portion of the horny sole op¬ 
posite to the navicular bone; a bulging out of the elastic tissue all 
round the coronet; and a swelling of the elastic materials at the 
