Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/596

 workmen who were unconscious of his presence, in order to note the exact number of seconds during which they held the hot shoe to the foot. These observations proved, that in shoeing 100 hoofs, the hot shoe was kept in contact with the horn on an average of from 46 to 47 seconds; that the maximum of this application was 80 seconds, and the minimum 29 seconds. He never knew of a horse being injured in this manner.

It may be useful to know Delafond's conclusions as to the relative influence of various degrees of temperature on the foot:—

'1. The shoe warmed to a dark red heat, the carbonized portion of the sole not having been removed by the buttress, transmits more caloric to the living tissues within a given time than the shoe heated to a bright red (rouge cerise).

'2. The thickness of the sole being the same, the shoe heated to a dark red causes a deeper and more severe burn than the bright red one.

'3. These experiments confirm what was stated in 1758 by Lafosse, that it is not the shoe heated to bright red that most frequently causes burns of the vascular sole, but rather that which is scarcely red or black heated.'

Latterly, the few advocates of cold fitting blamed the hot method for causing dryness of the horn and contraction of the hoof; but they either kept out of sight, or were not cognisant of the fact, that these conditions had been complained of when nothing but cold fitting was known.

In a few years the cold fitting method in France had