4o 
intended to prevent and cure, and at the same time all the good results which possibly 
might have been derived from distributing the weight bearing surface over a greater 
portion of the bottom of the foot, was more than offset by the practice of thining the 
sole of the foot, to allow it to spring easily up and down, as he taught was the require¬ 
ment of the normal or healthy foot. The non-success of the frog-pressure shoe caused 
it to be discontinued, but it appears that its author discovered another place, viz.: that 
of protected frog-pressure. 
Falsely supposing the reason or cause of its failure to consist of the fact that the 
sensitive frog became irritated and bruised from too forcible contact of the horny frog 
with the hard or paved roads, he applied artificial frogs made of rubber, in order that the 
horny frog might not receive the direct blow in coming to the ground, but that the 
required pressure might still be exerted on the frog. 
Then Bracy Clark labored long and earnestly to show that the foot became diseased 
only from confinement, by wearing an unyielding iron shoe, nailed to the hoof prevent¬ 
ing the lateral expansion consequent as he supposed upon its coming to the ground and 
bearing the superincumbent weight. 
Interference with this important motion of the hoof, prevented exercise considered 
necessary for the health of the internal foot and pain and discomfort were the results as 
he says from thus confining it “as within a vise.” 
Now, allowing he had pointed out the cause of diseased condition of the foot and 
that they originated from a “ruinous defect” in the application of shoes, the remedy 
would have suggested itself to any man of ordinary ingenuity as it did to him; so he 
invented the well known jointed shoe, consisting of a shoe made in two halves of 
the ordinary shape and having a joint or hinge at the toe. Being nailed to the hoof in 
the ordinary way the hoof might open and close all it required to. 
James Turner a brilliant writer who.first gave prominence to navicular thritis as a 
cause of lameness, also sought by a specific plan of shoeing to modify and prevent 
chronic lameness, in a manner similar to that adopted by Clark. Viewing the cause 
of disordered and painful conditions of the feet to consist chiefly in the fettering influ¬ 
ence of the shoe as it was commonly applied, he invented the extremely simple means 
of allowing the inner quarter of the hoof to expand, by nailing the shoe to the outer 
quarter and toe of the hoof only, leaving the inner quarter entirely free. 
He offered many plausible reasons to show why the milateral or one side nailed 
shoe should be used universally, but for evident reasons it shared the same fate as have 
all other specialties of its kind and was discarded after being proved a failure. 
It would be very easy to refer to and quote from other authors who have affirmed 
and in some instances exceeded the ideas of the three spoken of, but it is not necessary 
for my purpose. 
I am aware in choosing the subject now being considered, that I have selected one 
in which there is almost an endless amount of material for discussion, or for the produc¬ 
tion of similar papers, so my desire is to introduce only just a sufficient amount of what 
has already been written to make my meaning plain. 
My object in alluding to those writers and their methods of shoeing is not only to 
remark the fact that the specialties invented by them were of an unscientific and un¬ 
worthy kind, but also that being founded upon an unsubstantial and worthless basis, 
there was no possible need of their ever having been adopted. 
Almost all of the so-called systems of shoeing for which so much has been claimed 
by their authors from the time of Lafosse down to the present day, have had for an 
