without shoes, Solleysel mentions that those of the German peasantry are not shod; though he asserts it would be much to their advantage if they were, as the limbs and feet were in nearly every case he saw more or less deformed. M. Bernard recently confirms this observation, by stating that in Lorraine, Alsace, and Bavaria, he saw very many agricultural horses unshod, and that deformities of the hoofs were common.' Journal de Méd. Vét. Militaire, vol. iv. p. 1II. CHAPTER XI. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF VETERINARY SCHOOLS IN FRANCE. ON SHOEING. GREATEST SHOEING. TREATISES CLUMSY SPECIMENS OF SHOES. LAFOSSE, SEN., THE SHORT SHOE AND THE INCRUSTED SHOE. OPPOSITION OF THE JEREMIAH THE INFLUENCE OF LOCALITY ON THE HOOFS. THE " SCREW SHOE. NUMEROUS DISEASES OF THE FOOT. OSMER. COMPLAINT AGAINST FARRIERS. ENGLISH SHOEING. CONTRACTED THE EVILS OF PARING. THE HOOFS. NAVICULAR DISEASE. DE TISE. PREJUDICE AGAINST IMPROVEMENTS. THE EARL OF PEMBROKE. UNSHOD HORSES. MANAGEMENT OF THE HOOFS. FECTIVE SHOES. CLARK'S SHOE. In the 18th century, when veterinary schools were established in France, treatises on shoeing were abundantly multiplied. With 'L'Ecole de Cavalerie' of La Guérinière (1733), 'La Parfaite Connaissance des Chevaux' of Saunier (1734), 'Le Nouveau Parfait Maréchal' of Garsault (1755), and others, appears the 'Nouvelle Pratique de Ferrer les Chevaux de Selle et de Carosse' (Paris, 1756) of Lafosse' (Maréchal des Petites Ecuries This excellent essay was translated into English by Braken (who du Roi). This veterinarian, a man of great observation, and an enlightened practitioner, may be said to have been the most advanced of that school which, for two centuries, had been endeavouring to improve the vicious courses adopted by the farriers in their treatment of horses' feet. The principal of these practices were injudicious removal of the horn, and the great weight and length of the shoes. We have seen that the Italian writer, Fiaschi, had already protested against the use of calkins, which were becoming of greater size as time advanced. An example of this, from the church-door of Saint-Saturnin, has been already given. During the reign of Louis XIV., this absurd fashion appears to have been at its height. No thought seems to have been bestowed on the injurious influence such shoeing might have on the form or quality of the hoofs, on the true or false disposition of the limbs, nor yet on the horse's natural movements. Chargers and ordinary riding-horses wore strangely-shaped masses of iron, which, for weight and clumsiness, could scarcely, one would think, be carried by a strong waggon-horse of our own times. This unreasonable and most pernicious custom, which makes us wonder how it was possible that anything like quick progression could be accomplished without serious damage to the limbs of horses and riders, is shown in the paintings of Lebrun, court-painter to the Grand Monarque, which may be seen in the galleries of the Louvre, and in which Alexander and other heroes of antiquity are represented on horses whose feet are cum had performed a like service for Lafosse's earlier work, 'Traité des Observations et des Découvertes sur les Chevaux '). It has been republished in the Bibliothèque Vétérinaire, Paris, 1849. LAFOSSE. 6 473 In the Gobelins' bered with tremendous crampons.' tapestry, manufactured under that artist's direction, these massive projections are also depicted. A shoe of this description, copied from one worn by a saddle-horse, on a piece of Gobelins at Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, and made in 1684, will perhaps give some idea of their proportions (fig. 182). In the reign of Louis XV., however, the large calkins were generally abolished by the farriers, though the shoes were yet as long, if not longer, than before, and towards the heels were made heavy and thick. Against this absurd fashion fig. 182 Lafosse uses every argument. Informing us that in Prussia, the fore-feet only were shod; in Germany, the fore and hind-each shoe having three calkins; in France, only calkins on the hind-feet; while in England the shoes were wide, thin, and with thickened heels, so that the frogs could not reach the ground, though without calkins before or behind; he says that all strangers visiting France carried in their train a farrier to shoe their horses in their own fashion, thinking it preferable, and that French noblemen did the same. Not that the mode of shoeing of any country was preferable to another-for native and foreign horses were alike badly shod-but because it was less an affair of reasoning than fancy and habit. The practice of shoeing horses appears to me to be good, useful, and even necessary on paved roads; but it is on the form and manner of applying shoes that not only depends the preservation of the feet, but also the safety of the limbs and the harmony of movement. We always find ourselves more active and nimble when we wear easy shoes; but a wide, long, and thick shoe will do for horses what clogs do for us-render them heavy, clumsy, and unsteady.' After giving a brief notice of the anatomy of the foot, the necessity for the farrier to understand this, and also the fact that the horse, in a natural condition, ought to have the whole extent of its foot placed upon the superfices of the ground it covers, he refers to the defects of the shoeing then in vogue, and as aptly as if he had lived in our own day: As it is not possible to employ unshod horses on paved roads or hard ground without running the risk of destroying some of the parts just mentioned, we have been compelled to shoe them; but the actual method is so injurious that, so far from preserving their feet, it concurs to their destruction in occasioning a number of accidents, as I will demonstrate. 1. Long shoes, thick at the heels, never remain firmly attached to the feet in consequence of their weight, and break the clinches of the nails. 2. They require proportionately large nails to retain them, and these split the horn, or frequently their thick stalks press against the sensitive lamina and sole, and cause the horse to go lame. '3. Horses are liable to pull off these long shoes when the hind-foot treads upon the heel of the fore-shoe, either in walking, while standing by putting the one foot upon the other, between two paving-stones in the pavement, be |