706 
PERIPLANTAR SHOEING. 
lengthened experience of the new plan, he pronounced to be 
an improvement upon the ordinary vicious system. This, as 
is well known,' was the same in France as it now generally 
is in Britain: mutilation of the hoofs by knife and rasp, and 
the application of unnecessarily heavy, or what some people 
euphemistically term stout,” shoes, attached in some sort 
of a fashion by a proportionately large number of nails. 
M. Charlier’s method, which was designated the ‘‘ peri- 
plantar mode of shoeing,” consisted, in brief, in the imbed¬ 
ding of a comparatively narrow and light rim of iron or 
steel around the lower border of the foot, in a space made by 
the removal of a certain portion of the crust, and projecting 
as little as possible beyond the plantar surface, with the 
object of allowing the unpared frog, and as much of the un¬ 
mutilated sole as was on that plane, to come in contact with 
the ground. 
This plan of efficiently protecting the foot, at the same 
time that it assured the integrity of its form, structure, and 
functions, was devised to obviate the great injury and cruelty 
inflicted on horses by robbing the soles and frogs of their 
natural protection, and then attempting to compensate for 
this robbery by attaching to the wall of the hoof a clumsy 
heavy mass of iron, as puzzling to look at as it is unscientific 
and unmeaning in conception. It was seen that these stout 
shoes removed those portions of the foot from the ground 
which were intended by nature to share in sustaining the 
weight and strain and diminish concussion by their elasticity, 
while they seriously injured, not only the organ itself, but 
also the limb, and indirectly—or even directly—contributed 
to render the animal’s life a torturing and brief one. This 
injury and cruelty to the horse, as well as loss to his master, 
is no fiction but a stern reality, and for centuries has been as 
apparent in the streets of Paris and other cities of France, as it 
is in those of London, Bath, Bristol, or elsewhere in Britain. 
Many serious and oftentimes incurable maladies have been, 
and are now, induced, by this unreasonable—I might even 
be warranted in saying barbarous—fashion, which is con¬ 
demned alike by the teachings of science, the reasoning of 
common-sense, and the result of daily observation and expe¬ 
rience. Look at the poor cab-, carriage-, or omnibus-horse, 
with its deformed, crumbling, or fissured hoofs, shrunken or 
convex soles, and rotten w^asted frogs, surmounted by ring¬ 
bones, ossified lateral cartilages, splints, curbs, spavins, 
broken-knees, and contracted tendons, and then begin to 
inquire what share rasping, paring, stout shoes,” and other 
strange fancies, have had in their production. If it were at 
