244 
( 
J. P. ADAMS. 
subjects that are indeed creditable and worthy of note. All are 
of a character that give strong proof of more progressive ability 
and intelligent study than has heretofore been given to these 
subjects by the craft or the veterinary profession. 
The practice of shoeing the horse dates back to remote ages, 
and very little progress has been made until comparatively re¬ 
cent times, and it is safe to say that more progress has been 
made in the last twenty-five years in this country than ever was 
made in this branch of industry. The fact that the horse-shoer 
did not progress is surprising on account of the close rela¬ 
tionship between the horse-shoer and the veterinarian, the 
horse-shoer and the horse owner, many times the pleasure and 
comfort of the horse owner being largely dependent upon the 
intelligence and skill of his horse-shoer, and it seems to me that 
in many cases the veterinarian has lent his aid to try to keep 
the horse-shoer down by calling him incompetent, not always 
unjustly, but many times to shift the responsibility of incompe¬ 
tency on his own part, for it is a fact that with all the scientific 
stud}’' aud intelligence of the veterinary profession the matter of 
shoeing the horse has been very largely neglected, and there is 
not a college in this country where a veterinarian or a horse- 
shoer can take a scientific course iu horse-shoeing, which seems 
to me is not as it should be. 
Dr. Robinson, in a paper read before the Illinois State Med¬ 
ical Association, says : “The idea of making a practical and 
scientific horse-shoer of a veterinary student by a few courses of 
hammering iron into shapeless masses, as some of our colleges 
have attempted, is to my mind quite as absurd as the idea that 
a course of the structure aud functions of the foot would make a 
horse-shoer a qualified veterinarian.” It is apparent to the 
casual observer that the relation of the horse-shoer to the veter¬ 
inarian must be founded upon justice, and in justice to the horse- 
shoer it is to his credit that it can be said that he has at last 
awakened to the real condition which he occupies, and to the 
necessities of the age, and is ready and willing to prepare him¬ 
self, and is anxious to place himself upon the plane that is his to 
