r fHE HORSE’S FOOT. 
99 
Vatel, and the half-shoe of Sempastous, of Peillard, also possess 
but a doubtful utility. Practice has not confirmed the hopes of 
their inventors. They are difficult to make, easily injured, and 
of small solidity, and their advantages are wholly of the problem¬ 
atic order. 
Mayer has recommended a shoe whose internal border is 
thicker than the external, in such a way that the plane of the 
plantar surface of the shoe shall be inclined outwards, and instead 
of the concavity of the ordinary shoe, where the foot is pressed 
when in a position of rest, there is a convexity which promotes 
and even increases the dilatation of the foot. This mode of shoe¬ 
ing has for its inconvenience the exposure of the sole to contu¬ 
sions. It supposes an extensive expansion of the foot which is 
not natural; the horizontal plane is amply sufficient in ordinary 
circumstances. We have, however, used it advantageously in 
preventing the pressure of the sole against the shoe by means of 
a sheet of gutta perclia. We have used it in almost complete 
contraction, and we think we have noticed, with Hartmann, that 
the dilatation once started by a mechanical means, not too 
severely applied, nature continues it, with the assistance of that 
style of shoe. Instead of giving that special shape of the shoe in 
its entire length, it has been proposed to have it only at the 
branches; each heel presenting at its internal border a thickness, 
double or even treble that of the external, by which the shoe is 
inclined outwards by its plantar and becomes horizontal by the 
ground face. It is flat at the toe and the quarters, and is the 
shoe with slippers of de la Broue, of Solleysel (fig. 12), and that 
recently Vatrin has used in proposing to have the internal half of 
the width of the shoe inclined. It thus resembles the shoe genete 
or with ears , of which we shall speak hereafter. This shoe is 
only indicated when the heels are already contracted; they have 
no indication as prophylactic shoeing. 
The shoe with slippers is indeed a shoe which in some cases 
may cure contraction. u If the results obtained have not been 
very satisfactory,” says JDefays, “ this depends not upon the shoe, 
but arises from the defective manner in which the foot was pared. 
To be efficacious in that shoeing the heels must be left alone, and 
the sole and the bars must be well thinned. It is true that in 
