Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/562

 width of the shoe should be sloped or bevelled from the inside of the nail-heads all round the shoe to the inner rim, with the exception of from one to one inch and a half of flat bearing on the heels, and the shoe should be of an equal thickness from toe to heel.' The bar or circular shoe, when properly constructed, Mr Goodwin considered of the greatest use 'in affording a greater surface of defence than any other shoe, which enables us to determine the weight of the animal more generally on the foot by equalizing the pressure on more bearing points than a plain shoe.' Screw shoes are noticed, as well as their effects on contracted feet. Their use had been recently revived by Mr Jekyl, whose pattern, with a joint at the toe and a screw at the heels, was objectionable. Sir B. Bloomfield had suggested a shoe with two joints—one on each side of the toe: the toe-piece had two nailholes in it, and each branch, furnished with a bar-clip, had three nails; screws acted on the inner side of the branches towards the heel.

Very judicious remarks are made as to nailing shoes to the hoofs, and those on the management of the horse's feet are commendable; but it may be noticed that his curved-toe shoe was supposed to correspond to the natural form of the os pedis, or coffin-bone, and in one of his drawings to illustrate this principle he figures what is certainly a diseased or abnormal specimen of that bone. Perhaps on this diseased specimen he founded his imitation of the French shoe.

The French method was, in his opinion, far superior to the English one, and in lauding its merits he forgot to notice its defects, which at least equal those of the latter.