MECHANICAL TREATMENT OF LAMENESS. 
27 
methods prevail to-day that were practiced two hundred years 
ago, notwithstanding the fact that the improper shoeing and 
paring of the feet cripples and destroys more horses or renders 
them unfit for use, than all other causes combined, and viewed 
from a financial standpoint it is no less appalling; and when I 
look at this subject from a humanitarian point of view, gentle¬ 
men, I blush with shame for the veterinary profession. I ask 
you in all seriousness, gentlemen, why is this so ? Is it possible 
that nothing can be done to arrest the great destruction of horses, 
and consequently their values, from improper shoeing and par¬ 
ing of the feet ? And why is it the veterinary colleges have 
been so negligent about this particular branch of the profession ? 
When it is so well understood that in an ordinary private prac¬ 
tice, fifty per cent, of the horse work pertains to lameness in one 
form or another, and again the unsatisfactory methods of treat¬ 
ing the different forms of lameness as usually taught at our 
veterinary colleges, I am sorry to say, is little calculated to build 
up a young veterinarian just starting in practice. 
Professor Gamgee, in his historical sketches concerning 
horseshoeing, informs us that towards the close of the last cen¬ 
tury the ablest men at that time, who had studied the subject, 
were deeply impressed with the importance of the art of horse¬ 
shoeing, as essential to the State, to agriculture and commerce, 
to the efficiency of an army and the general wants of society. 
This was the leading idea that inspired the founding of colleges 
and schools first in France, then in England. The main object 
was the improvement of horseshoeing ; the medical treatment 
was secondary. These men considered the foot the essential 
part of the horse ; they were observant enough to know that the 
shoe was an instrument of either good or evil ; in fact, life or 
death to the horse. And the great consideration was then felt 
to be, doubtless what it is to-day, a better knowledge of the art 
of shoeing. The art must have been in a very unsatisfactory 
state at that time to have called forth so much of an organized 
effort to place it upon a more satisfactory footing. Glancing at 
the records of the first college in England, its founders were doni- 
