Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/528

 erosion of the cartilage of the navicular bone, and the symptoms indicative of this foot disease. And long before this period, contracted hoofs arising from undue paring by the maréchal, and lameness resulting therefrom, were, as we have seen, often mentioned. But the unknown author of the 'Grand Maréchal, Expert et Français,' published at Toulouse in 1701, not only gives us this information, but actually describes the neurotomy operation for the relief of this lameness, the discovery of which in 1816, by Professor Sewell, of London, has almost immortalized his name. Here is the modus operandi: 'Vous coucherez le cheval, ensuite lui ouvrirez la partie où l'on barre la veine, et en tirerez le nerf avec la petite corne; apres quoi vous le graisserez avec du populleum, et il guerira.'

Osmer continues his discourse on the treatment of the horse's hoof in shoeing. 'The spongy, skin-like substance (of the frog) is not to be cut away till it becomes ragged, because it is the expansion of the skin round the heel, its use being to unite more firmly the foot and its contents, and to keep the cellular part of the heel from growing rigid; it also surrounds the coronary ring, and may be observed to peel and dry away as it descends on the hoof.' This skin-like substance is the coronary frogband Bracy Clark claims the credit of being the first to notice, in 1809.

After laying it down as a rule that the crust or wall should only be removed in a degree proportionate to the growth, he goes on to say: 'In all broad fleshy feet, the crust is thin, and should therefore suffer the least possible loss. On such feet the rasp alone is generally sufficient to make the bottom plain, and produce a sound foundation, without the use of the desperate buttress (the French