Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/516

 against the navicular bone, as has been mentioned above, and which, being repeated at every step the animal takes, fatigues it, and induces inflammation. From thence often arises the distention of the sheaths of tendons (molettes—vulgo, "windgalls"), engorgements and swelling of the tendons, etc., that are observed after long or rapid journeys. These accidents arise less from the length of the journey, as has been currently believed, than from the false practice of paring the sole.

'I am astonished that this method of shoeing has not been employed long ago, and I have much trouble in persuading myself that I am the inventor. I am more inclined to believe that it is only a copy of that which has been practised by the first artist who thought about shoeing horses.

'If my suspicions are correct, the oblivion into which it has fallen proves nothing against its perfection, because the good as well as the bad are alike liable to be forgotten. The multitude, more credulous than enlightened, are easily persuaded; hence the long thick shoes, those with calkins, then with thick heels, and afterwards the thin. There is every reason to believe that if the poor animals for whom all this has been done could be allowed to speak as they must think, nothing of the kind would have taken place, and they would have preferred their ancient armature, which, having only been designed to preserve the crust, had certainly none of the inconveniences of that employed now-a-days.'

Lafosse's experience of this admirable mode of protecting, while preserving, the foot, was derived from a trial of its advantages on more than 1800 horses; and his