796 NORTH OF ENGLAND VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
previous history obtained, and the maltreatment to which the feet 
had been subjected in shoeing fairly considered and contrasted 
with the requirements and adaptation of the parts—in a word, phy¬ 
siologically appreciated—would undoubtedly be found to be disease 
of the laminae, coffin-bone, &c., with their concomitant effects. 
The system of shoeing he felt convinced worked irrecoverable ruin 
upon our hard-worked horses; and where exemption from these 
consequences are fortunately present, it has resulted chiefly from 
what has not been done, rather than from pursuing the system of 
reducing of the feet for the so-called purpose of preparing the foot 
for the shoe, a practice indulged in to the detriment of a large 
per-centage of our town horses in a special degree. It is a practice 
too common among our horse-shoeing community, and is best 
known as being the principle of “ breaking a man’s head, and 
putting on a plaster afterwards.” The feet are reduced by that 
modern invention, the drawing-knife, in an unnatural and unwar¬ 
rantable degree; and, again, by the nails, both from their form and 
manner in which they are being driven; this course, repeatedly 
carried on without a corresponding reproduction being possible 
between each shoeing, is compensated for by leather soles and 
stopping. The foot properly kept needs no stopping. The system 
of“ thumbing ” the sole, as advocated by Mr. Miles, is a most absurd 
practice, and only actuated by an entire ignorance of the nature of 
the parts. Paring the feet of animals to such a degree in these 
cases of lameness is productive of a greater aggravation of the 
disease ; a proper system of shoeing being the best preventive as 
well as remedial treatment. 
Mr. D. M l Gregor much approved of the practice followed and 
taught by Mr. Gamgee, senior, viz., to avoid such paring, but to 
protect the foot by nature’s provisions, and agreed with the iast 
speaker in the tenor of what had been said. 
Mr. Thompson believed it to be a safe rule to dress out the feet 
both for shoeing and treatment of these cases of lameness, the 
exceptions to which, however, being those feet with thin weak 
hoofs. 
Mr. Dudgeon agreed in some measure with Mr. Thompson, and 
advocated the use of stopping to horses’ feet to prevent their be¬ 
coming hard, which he considered was a forerunner to diseases. 
Mr. Hunter very ably replied at the close to the various argu¬ 
ments adduced by the speakers, and supported the views pro¬ 
pounded in his paper. 
As to treatment of navicularthritis, it was generally acknowledged 
but few good results accrued from that mostly adopted and recom¬ 
mended ; neurotomy in a majority of cases offering the greatest 
chances of success, though by no means without great objections 
to its general adoption. Frog-setons afford but very temporary 
relief, but are greatly assisted by rest and blisters to the coronet, &c. 
The President concluded the discussion by a lengthened consider¬ 
ation of the subject under discussion, and an analysis of the state¬ 
ments which had fallen from the speakers, urging his conviction that 
