554 
ON SHOEING HORSES. 
all the purposes intended, with the high heels of the light horses 
then common in France, and on unmade roads; but the heavy 
horses, with low heels, were still obliged to have the heels defended 
by the long shoe : yet any one would have supposed this Caliph 
would have carried out the principle by leaving the heels at liberty 
to act; but this does not appear. 
The Caliph Js. Clark did not provide for the action of the hoof 
with the seated shoe, or Caliph Moorcroft, who afterwards adopted 
it, and by paring the sole, bars, and crust on the same level the 
more was this required, because the shoe could not descend. 
The above, we believe, is a true history of the practice of 
shoeing up to the time the great Caliph, Coleman, became Mufti 
of St. Pancras mosque, and he has left behind him a record of 
his opinions and instructions on this subject which will never be 
rivalled; and if his students have not carried these out, the fault was 
not his. But, to confine ourselves to the point at issue—springing 
of the heels. He said in his Lectures, “ Corns are produced by 
concussion, the resistance to pressure in a part having motion. 
It is an extravasation of blood from the sensible sole into the 
horny sole. It can take place at any part of the sole. I have 
seen it on the frog and various parts of the sole; but the com¬ 
mon seat, and most susceptible, is that part of the sole between 
the bars and crust of the inner heel, next that on the outside. 
It rarely occurs in the hind feet, and then not at the heels. The 
very circumstance of its frequency in the fore feet is from the 
weight of the animal; and the resistance to the descent of the sole 
has a great deal to do with it, from the pressure of the shoe or a 
stone, the sole being morbidly thick, any thing that obstructs the 
descent of the sole. The sole, too, may be morbidly thin. No 
particular variety of horse is exempt from this, or from having 
corns before being shod; but it is almost always the effect of bad 
shoeing; i.e., either paring too little or too much. When a horse 
is lame, the smith does what we do in health. This is a curious 
circumstance, that the smiths have for centuries pared out the corn 
places. He takes away the effect, the extravasated blood, when 
the part is inflamed, and finds good effect. The lame horse, some¬ 
times, immediately goes sound ; and yet, when the foot is in health 
they will not do it. They whip off the crust with the buttress 
before they know what quantity is necessary to be removed; thus 
in heavy horses not leaving sufficient crust, and then making the 
sole too thin: but by leaving sufficient crust, and making the sole 
concave, the pressure is removed, and the pain also. But if the 
same mode of shoeing be continued, there will still be concussion 
and corns. I would forgive a man for pricking a horse, but not 
for my horse having corns; whereas persons are very angry when 
