Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/519

 after Lafosse had published his treatise, and their protest appears to have carried the mind of the crowd.

Bourgelat, the illustrious founder of those French veterinary schools, which have done that country such honour and rendered her agriculture such great service, introduced another system of farriery, which has prevailed more or less in France until the present time. 'Shoeing,' says this professor, 'is a methodical action of the hand on the feet of animals, on which it is practicable and necessary. By it the foot of the horse, principally, ought to be maintained in the condition in which it is found if its conformation is good and regular, and its defects should be repaired by shoeing if it is found vicious and deformed. By shoeing, also, it is often possible to remedy the inevitable consequences of disproportions between various parts of the body, or at least to modify their effects. . . . . . to obviate those which result from defectiveness in the direction of the limbs. . . . . to facilitate, to a certain degree, freedom and regularity in the execution of movements. . . . . . and to prevent those false positions of the limbs to which certain habits appear to dispose them.' The nails were to be regularly disposed between the toe and the heel, and the shoe bent up or adjusted in such a way