Page:Horse shoes and horse shoeing.djvu/620

 which might be explained on reflecting that the sole, bars, and frog, having recovered all their thickness, afterwards oppose an insurmountable obstacle to that movement of contraction on itself, which the hoof tends fatally to assume when the sole and frog are thinned, and the bars are destroyed by the boutoir.

For it could not be denied that, with ordinary shoeing, the paring of the hoofs brought about this result, as it was a common practice to test by pressure of the thumbs the proper degree of thinness of the soles.

M. Bouley thought the shoes could be forged and put on as readily as in the old system, and he sums up his report, in 1866, as follows: The preplantar shoeing had been modified by diminishing the depth of the groove, which was not cut so near the living parts of the foot; that this modification, necessitated by experience, prevented pain being inflicted, though it had the disadvantage of making the foot longer than it ought to be, according to the principles of physiological shoeing; that this inconvenience was increased by the necessity there was for giving the shoe a greater thickness—2 centimètres (about 9-10ths of an inch), that its narrowness might be compensated for so as to resist wear for a given time; that this inconvenience, which could not be overlooked, was yet counterbalanced: a. By the lightening of the shoe, which diminished fatigue, b. By the greater surety of the horse's footing, a more solid bearing on the ground, greater liberty of movement, and as a result, a more efficacious employment of its strength, c. By the preservation of the integrity of its feet, or the gradual disappearance of deformities or diseases affecting them.