Rational Horse-Shoeing | Page 2

that pain is the warning cry of a faithful sentinel on the outpost, that disease is at hand. Disease is the punishment following a violation of the laws of nature, and can only be escaped by restoring natural conditions.
Remember also, that "Nature," so called by Hippocrates, the earliest systematic writer upon medicine, never slumbers nor fails in duty, but strives with unerring, active intelligence to prevent disease, or to cure it when it can not be prevented.
When the measures and processes of the physician are in harmony with the natural intention, disease may be cured; when they are adverse in application, the patient dies, or recovers in spite of art.
A great French philosopher powerfully remarked: "Nature fights with disease a battle to the death; a blind man armed with a club--that is, a physician--comes in to make peace between them. Failing in that, he lays about him with his club. If he happens to hit disease he kills disease; if he hits nature he kills nature."
We wish to be understood that in all things we would assist and facilitate the action of nature, under the artificial restraints of the horse. If we fail in this, or offer obstruction, our occupation is gone. The world has no time to listen to our theory, no use for our practice. And we hope that the thoughtful readers of these pages will see in our intention, an earnest, honest purpose and belief, and that, without affectation of science or pretense of superior knowledge, we base all our efforts upon nature and common sense.
In following our instructions and attempting to use our method, have patience, and note the result from day to day. The horse will quickly tell you. His action will expose quackery and unmask pretension. He will be no party to a fraud, no advocate of an advertisement.
SOUND HORSES.
A sound horse is, after man, the paragon of animals. "In form and moving how express and admirable!" His frame is perfect mechanism, instinct with glowing life, and guarded by the great conservative and healing powers of nature from disease and death. His vitality is surpassed by that of man, because man has the endowment of soul, and in his human breast hope springs eternal and imagination gives fresh powers of resistance. Like man, the horse conforms cheerfully to all climates and to all circumstances. He is equally at home--
"Whether where equinoctial fervors glow Or winter wraps the polar world in snow."
Amid the sands of Arabia his thin hide and fine hair evidence his breeding; in the frozen north his shaggy covering defends him from the cold storms and searching winds. The disadvantages under which he will work are in no way so clearly illustrated as in his efficiency when exposed to the evils of shoeing. Placed upon heel-calks, to slip about and catch with wrenching force in the interstices of city pavements, or loaded with iron-clogs, to give him "knee-action" and to "untie his shoulders," he bravely faces his discomforts and does to the best of his ability his master's will.
How quickly his active system responds to intelligent care and shows its beneficial results! And when relieved from the abuses of ignorance, his recuperative powers re-establish the springing step of youth.
CHAPTER I.
EVILS OF COMMON SHOEING.
Every horseman finds his chief difficulty in the fact that he has to protect the natural foot from the wear incident to the artificial condition in which the horse is placed in his relation to man. In those important industries where great numbers of horses are used, and the profit of the business depends upon the efficiency of the animal, the question becomes a very serious one, and the life term of the horse, or the proportion of the number of animals that are kept from their tasks by inability, make the difference between profit and loss to the great transportation lines that facilitate the busy current of city life. But notwithstanding the importance of this subject, upon the score equally of economy and humanity, the world is, for the most part, just where it was a thousand years ago, possibly worse off, for the original purpose of shoeing was only to protect the foot from attrition or chipping, and but little iron was used, but, as the utility of the operation became apparent, the smith boldly took the responsibility of altering the form of the hoof to suit his own unreasoning views, cutting away, as superfluous, the sole and bars, paring the frog to a shapely smoothness, and then nailing on a broad, heavy piece of iron, covering not only the wall but a portion of the sole also, thus putting it out of the power of the horse to take a natural, elastic step.
In a short time the hoof, unbraced by the sole and bars, begins to contract,