710 
PERIPLANTAR SHOEING. 
gave some strange proofs of the benefit he had derived from 
his experience. In evidence of this I may refer to the 
Field for February 13th; a portion only of the communi¬ 
cation also appeared in last month’s Veterinarian (p. 642). 
The editor of that journal disposed of this effusion in a few 
terse lines, and it has never been referred to since. It ap¬ 
peared too absurd to deserve notice from me, even had I been 
willing to enter into a controversy in a non-professional 
periodical. 
Those who are inclined to inquire how far that writer is 
correct (for if we are to credit him he is less fallible even than 
the Pope) will see that I have stated my views very fairly in 
regard to this method of shoeing, and those views I still 
maintain. They will also find that my opinions and state¬ 
ments have been very imperfectly or wrongly represented by 
that writer; that in the very fair trial ” he mentions as re¬ 
ported for August Tth, instead of the reporter having discon¬ 
tinued the system, he is still practising it; and that every 
writer who alludes to the Charlier shoeing speaks in its 
favour. These of course it would not have been convenient to 
mention in the September number of the Veterinarian. The 
unaccountable animus against me is too bitter to permit this; 
and foiled in the Field its operations are fortunately limited 
to the Veterinarian. 
From the first appearance of my letters in the former journal 
until the present time, every effort has been made to throw dis¬ 
credit on, or diminish the value of, my statement, as well as 
damage or destroy whatever amount of professional reputation 
I may chance to possess. Suspecting, I presume, that what I 
had stated in the Field with reference to periplantar shoeing 
and the management of the foot was incorrect, he paid me a 
visit at Chatham in February to assure himself of the fact, 
and I quote what he says after his inspection: I paid 
Mr. Fleming a visit at Chatham in February last, and I 
feel it right to state that I never saw feet in a more natural 
and healthy state than those of the horses of the Royal 
Engineers under his charge. They were all excellently 
shod, and those shod on the Charlier system were parti¬ 
cularly well done, and the horses appeared to go well in 
those narrow rims of iron let in level with the sole.” This 
reluctantly given evidence I am inclined to place against 
certain charges brought against me, and in refutation of 
the proof of ‘^correctness” claimed by this writer at page 646 
of our professional journal. From what he stated to me 
during that visit, I inferred that he had neither tried, nor 
even seen the periplantar shoeing; and it appears from this 
