Special report on diseases of the horse / prepared under the direction of D.E. Salmon by Drs. Michener [and others].

  • United States. Bureau of Animal Industry.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Special report on diseases of the horse / prepared under the direction of D.E. Salmon by Drs. Michener [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    horses, whose shoes must of course be made with reference to the weight they have to bear and the inordinate strain to which they are subjected when the animal which wears them is at work, I am not prepared to admit that it is by any means necessary to add to the con- cussion to which his feet are unavoidably subjected, by several pounds of unyielding iron on each foot, when shoes weighing half as much would serve the purpose equally well. The lamentably short career of our city draft horse, which is usually determined by foot lameness of one kind or another, is largely attributable to the aggravated amount of battering on hard pavements which his needless weight of armament entails. The upper surface of the shoe should be perfectly level. If the plane of the web inclines from outside inward, it greatly adds to the una- voidable tendency to contraction which shoeing invariably entails, and there is a wealth of unwisdom in most of the clumsy attempts at mechanically spreading the heels by making the inclination in the contrary direction. It is true that in cases of malformation, or grave alteration of the contour of the foot, good results are obtainable by this or other mechanical means, but all such heroic remedies should be undertaken only at the instance and under the immediate super- vision of the veterinary practitioner; otherwise they are liable to do harm instead of good. In France dilatation of the hoof by mechanical means is advocated and practiced more than elsewhere, but the operation is performed with the utmost exactitude, scrupulous care and delicacy, and under the closest professional supervision. Even under these favorable con- ditions the slightest accidental deviation not only defeats the object in view, but occasionally leads to untoward results. When con- tracted feet have to be expanded there is a far more simple, safe and at the same time effective means of attaining that end to be found within the foot itself. By lowering the walls at the heels, so as to restore frog pressure, the latter speedily recovers its lost character- istics, and in a healthy condition gradually and naturally accomplishes one of the very purposes for which the Great Architect placed it there. It would seem to be unnecessary to say that the shoe should be so shaped as to conform exactly to the natural tread of the foot, yet a very common practice obtains of using a shoe of a uniform shape, often less in circumference, if such a term is permissible, than the foot on which it is to be nailed, and then rasping down the foot to fit it. It is obviously easier to make the foot to fit the shoe than it is to make the shoe to fit the foot; a stroke or two of the rasp effects the former, but it is a far more arduous undertaking to modify the size and shape of the shoe. The outcome of this pernicious practice is disastrous in the last degree, more especially so in a dry climate like ours, as the walls thus robbed of their natural covering permit the moisture of the foot rapidly to evaporate, and the horn fibers, w'hich make up the