444 
MR. GLOAG’S EXPERIMENTS ON HORSES’ FEET. 
By J. T. Hodgson. 
To the Editor of “ The Veterinarian .” 
Sir,—M y attention has been attracted to a series of original and 
very instructing experiments on horses’ feet by Mr. Gloag, the 
object of which appears to me not in the least an attack on the 
physiologists, being, as he is by these experiments, a distinguished 
one himself, but rather actuated by a praiseworthy desire to carry 
out in practice that physiology we have been taught in our public 
school, and which we all acknowledge, as far as Mr. Gloag’s experi¬ 
ments go, to remain intact. 
The first of the series goes to prove that there is no expansion 
of the horse’s foot, either unshod or shod; but it should have been 
considered, that there is no such thing as lateral expansion, as 
action of the horse’s hoof, which is a combined action not easily 
imitated , which is lost or exhausted anteriorly by the production 
of thickness of the crust in growth, the only remaining action being 
downwards and backwards, and, of course, outwards, but not late¬ 
rally, by the slight depression of the thinnest part of the sole near 
the point of the frog, depression at any other part being quite 
impossible. Now, it was Mr. B. Clark’s looking for lateral expan¬ 
sion, and trying to carry out the same by the hinge shoe, that has 
caused much misunderstanding on this subject: physiologically, he 
understood the action of the hoof; but this widening of the foot is 
not what, in many cases, has to be carried out in practice, but just 
the contrary. There are some feet which neither nails, clips, the 
concave upper surface of the shoe, nor curving the shoe at the toe, 
can do injury to : these practices tend rather to benefit such feet. 
How are we, therefore, to understand practical men, whether vete¬ 
rinarians or farriers, w^hen they propose to shoe horses on the 
“ expansion principle,” as applicable to light horses only 1—if so, 
it is a fallacy. 
Mr. Gloag’s experiments are irrefutable. First, that there is no 
expansion laterally ; secondly, that the action of the hoof is that 
of the “ spring and, what is more, he has proved both by the 
ordinary practices of shoeing. The no action when the heels of 
the hoof are in juxta-position with the heels of the shoe, when the 
foot is raised from or put on the ground ; and the action when the 
smith “ springs,” in certain cases, the heels of the shoes : here, then, 
is the substance of all we have been endeavouring to obtain in 
practice for years; and yet practical men do not ordinarily admit 
