Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/605

 the vitality, the nutrition, and the good conformation of the foot.

'The frog which is thrown out of its functions, says Coleman, becomes diseased. It is the same with the external border of the sole and the bars when hindered from contact with the ground and deprived of their normal functions. When a horse has its shoes taken off, it is easy to see that all these organs suffer, that they have not their amplitude, their form, or their natural consistency. Most frequently they are hard, contracted, atrophied, dried up, or rotten. In the country, where it is possible to allow horses to go without shoes, and in foals which have not yet been shod, with the exception of the crust being worn, we see nothing abnormal; the frogs are large, the heels solid, the horn of the sole supple though resisting, and all, in a word, tends to show that vitality is there as in other parts of the body, and that the foot receives the nutritive fluids necessary to it.

'Having been struck for a long time with this difference, and the troublesome consequences which result there-from, I sought in vain, like so many others, to modify the actual shoe, until one day I said to myself: Since the unshod horse travels perfectly well on unpaved or non-macadamized roads, and as it is always the crust which commences to break and become worn, owing to the hardness of the stony streets, is it not possible to protect this wall without touching the other parts? and would this not solve the problem?

'It was natural, therefore, that I should reflect that on the handles of several instruments, on the ends of certain articles, a ferrule of iron or copper was put to prevent them from splitting.