Chapter III (2)

Another mechanical ameliorator was termed the screw shoe. This had two rivets--one on either side of the toe, operating on two movable quarter pieces. The sides, therefore, were capable of all motion, and, being nailed to the quarters, were, by turning the screw, to be forced outward. The screw was situated under the frog, and was retained in its position by a stout bar of iron connected with the toe piece. Man, however, cannot treat any portion of an organic frame as it were an inorganic substance. He may tear flesh, but he cannot stretch or strain living tissues according to his pleasure. Moreover, all outward secretions are regulated by the parts which they cover and inclose. Thus, supposing a lad born with a diminutive head, the cranium cannot be enlarged by any degree of force; but educate the boy, exercise the intellect of the youth, and, with the greater development of the brain, the bones of the head will sensibly expand. So it must be with the heels of the horse’s feet. These parts may become rigid and wired in by the fixing power exercised by the nails of the shoe. But remove the nails, allow the hoof that motion which is needful to its health, and its internal structures may recover their lost functions; a gradual restoration to the normal shape may be the consequence of strength regained by the internal organs.

The veterinary mind was, however, slow to recognize so plain a rule. Like all nature’s laws, the truth necessitated not that show of mastery in which the ignorant especially delight. The famous screw shoe is everywhere admitted to have been a decided failure; nevertheless, the pride of poor humanity could not relinquish the hope of compelling life, through the power, to direct mechanical force. Screws and rivets had proved alike hurtful, but there still remained other artifices, which were as yet untried. The frog-pressure shoe was one of these, which ultimately lamed many horses, without having benefited a single one. The wedge-heeled shoe is, however, occasionally encountered, even at the present day. It consists of a shoe, imperfectly seated upon its upper surface, and which has the heels much thicker or higher than the toe. The iron, at the inside heel, is beaten into an angular form, the apex of the angle looking toward the foot. The intention is, that the heel, resting upon a slanting surface, should slide downward and outward, thus being forced gradually to expand. The shoe may be said, up to a particular point, to answer the inventor’s expectations. The hoof certainly does slide downward and outward; only, when this is accomplished, the wall has been torn from its attachments, while the apex of the wedge, coming into contact with the soft sole, has actually forced its way through the horn covering the last-named part, thereby lamentably laming the poor horse. Could the teaching of principle have been interpreted, so sad a result might have been understood without positively experimenting with breathing life.

But pride has no brains, and a very limited degree of feeling. A modification of the above shoe is still to be met in the London shops. The nail holes are principally at the toe, one only being inserted at the most forward part of each quarter. The author’s proposed plan of fastening the shoe is, therefore, no positive novelty; since the smith, before now, has impaled the toe of the foot. A return to perfect freedom, however, could alone cure the evils caused by unnatural restraint. The wedge heel pointed the toe toward the earth; injured the bars and the sole; often causing large portions of the coffin-bone to exfoliate. Seeing the plan did not answer, the next inventor lowered the heels and raised the forward part, this thing being named a “thin-heeled shoe.” However, one extreme could not heal the wounds provoked by another; and the position of the hoof, which the pavement of the stalls enforces while the horse is in the stable, the thin-heeled shoe perpetuated whenever the animal was taken abroad. Ceaseless discomfort can advantage no form of existence.

The last shoe, moreover, besides being thin at the heels, also displayed a mild desire to retain the feature of the wedge. This was done without the inventor suspecting that, when he fixed the quarters of the hoof at a high altitude, and invited the heels to slide down an inclined plane, he was only laying a trap for loosening the clinches; since, the quarters and the heels being continuous, one cannot move without the other being displaced.

All men having, theoretically, insisted on the necessity of permitted freedom of motion to the quarters, in order to secure the health of the foot, the next novelty was a proposition to confine those parts, by establishing a large clip at either side of the shoe. The clips were forged; but the thin heels were also retained. The highest portion being at the toe, of course the foot, obeying the laws of gravity, had an inclination to drag toward the lower level--thus the thin heels had a tendency to draw the hoof away from the clips, one part counteracting the other. Then, the clip shoe has a piece of steel inserted at the toe; but could an everlasting horse shoe be produced, it would bring but small gain to the proprietor; since the natural growth of the horn necessitates that the metal should be removed, that new nails should be inserted, and that the foot should be pared out every third week. However, the steel toe and the thin heels were incompatible with each other; since the thin heels took the bearing from that part which the steel presupposes to be alone liable to attrition.

It would, however, be vain to review all the shoes which have come before the public. A certain rim of iron has been pinched up, flattened out, squeezed in, twisted about, has been lengthened and has been shortened, subjected to every species of treatment but the right; and each trivial alteration has been patented to the public as a final and a wonderful improvement. After all the many changes, at the present time a modification of the shoe originally introduced by Clark, of Edinburgh, is in general use, or, if such an assertion requires any qualification, the hospital shoes, or shoes suited for particular forms of disease, are the principal exceptions.

The generality of grooms will undertake the relief of those injuries occasioned during motion, or which are produced by one leg being hit by the opposite foot.

Of cutting there are two descriptions. One is spoken of as “brushing,” and this kind occurs near to the pastern joint. The other is called “speedy cut,” and it takes place immediately below the knee. Both are equally annoying; but the last is the most dangerous. “Speedy cut” will destroy the rider’s security in his horse; for a blow on the seat of injury may bring the animal suddenly to earth. Both affections are likely to occasion exostosis; for the repeated injury may so irritate the bone as shall cause it to enlarge or tumefy. Thus, the renewal of the accident produces a result which must increase the probability of its recurrence.

Almost all weakly, long-legged, and narrow-chested horses cut. Creatures with cow hocks are said to be exposed to this calamity. Many young horses strike in going; but they lose the habit as age matures the strength. Nearly all animals, when exhausted, will “brush,” and often very severely. Lately, a ring of India-rubber has been employed as a protection against this annoyance; but it is a mere fantasy, and one not at all calculated to realize any practical expectation. Confirmed disappointment engenders a feeling allied to desperation; but when nostrums fail, advice should then be sought from more lofty counselors.

The speedy cut has already been alluded to in the Illustrated Horse Doctor; but in that volume no mention was made of what is ordinarily implied by “brushing,” which is confined principally to the hind extremities. It is astonishing how great may be the annoyance which a matter apparently so trivial will occasion; and it is a legitimate source of surprise how deep the wound can be, or how lasting the blemish, produced by slight blows, frequently becomes. The groom may exhaust his stock of remedies, and the master may expend some money and much patience, watching for a cure which is never effected.

Let the defeated proprietor then apply to some practical veterinary surgeon, who will inform him of the real cause of the injury which has already been intimated. Some horses will only cut during the latter portion of a long journey, or when thoroughly exhausted. Other quadrupeds are afflicted with a chronic description of weakness, and such animals may cut with the first step. These creatures require less work or entire rest, with a course of tonics, both in food and medicine.

However, make and shape certainly have some control over this affection. The horse which exhibits a wide chest, and stands with the feet not too close together, very rarely speedy-cuts. The animal which possesses well-made haunches with prominent hips and swelling thighs, that appear full, round, and fleshy, especially when such a creature places the fetlocks under the hocks, must be driven very far and pushed very hard before the pace shall become injurious.

Several repeated remedies have been sold for the relief of this defect. Saddlers keep in stock pieces of leather, or small flaps with straps appended, which last, being buckled round the leg, hang pendulous, covering the wound. Such applications, however, rarely are satisfactory. The horse, during the motion of the feet, repeatedly kicks the leather, and the frequent blows generally remove it from its original situation; thus, long before the journey has ended, the remedy hangs over some sound part of the leg, and the sore is bleeding from renewed injury.

A better plan is to procure a piece of cloth which matches the color of the animal, and to fold this round the leg, ultimately tying it at the top and the bottom. Such a contrivance cannot be displaced, and is less likely to attract attention than the leathern flap recently alluded to. However, it must be tightly wrapped round the shin or it will bag and appear unsightly, as it is represented in the previous illustration. Still, such a resort affords but a partial protection, cloth being unable to stay the entire consequences of a blow; nor can it be regarded as exercising a curative influence.

That which appears better is a leathern boot, of the color of the skin, or made of prepared horse skin, having the hair on, and laced upon the member. Over the seat of injury a concave piece of stout leather is let into the covering, and the hollow thus formed, which acts as a protection, can also receive a portion of lint saturated in the lotion, prepared by adding one grain of chloride of zinc to an ounce of water. Thus, while the sore is spared a renewal of the cause, curative treatment is not stayed.

The chloride of zinc lotion is the only remedy which an ordinary case of cutting would require; but aggravated instances of this annoyance will also be benefited by rest and a course of restoratives to amend the constitutional debility. Other matters consist in a warm lodging, an ample bed, prepared food, walking exercise, a loose box, and, above all things, no work. Should the animal be changing its coat, which is generally a period of weakness, throw it up till the operation is completed; give extra nourishment and one ounce of liquor arsenicalis, each day, to assist nature. Never turn out to grass; for numerous are the examples of flagging quadrupeds which, after the supposed invigoration of a month’s “run,” have been taken up in a condition which disabled them for labor ever afterward.

Such an animal should enjoy the very best of softened food--beans in excess--and should be retained at the homestead. It should be handled, not ridden, to exercise, of which it can hardly have too much, provided the motion does not excite perspiration or cause evident fatigue, neither of which states is desirable. Should the horse sweat in the stable, remove all clothing, open the door, and pour over the body several pails of the coldest water--having a helper ready to dry the saturated coat with all speed; then, putting on a bridle, send the animal out for one hour’s brisk walking exercise. Order the man who holds the rein to walk at the rate of four miles an hour. An active quadruped can travel much faster, so there can be no excuse, beyond the indulgence of his individual laziness, for the servant creeping along, while the animal hangs the head as though it had some intention of laying down.

Much injury is done every year by the indolent manner in which idle lads “walk horses.” The urchins who infest the streets of London display nimbleness while they run by the side of an equestrian, shouting out occasionally, “Hold your honor’s horse?” No sooner, however, have they received orders to walk the quadruped about, than all their activity departs; they creep along at a pace which only just renders it impossible to charge them with standing positively stationary. The horse may be warm, and the master may desire to prevent the body from chilling while he is detained by business. A ready affirmative testifies that the command to move briskly has been comprehended; but who ever beheld one of these youthful idlers, when in possession of a job, stirring even at the pace of a lady’s ordinary walk?

However, to return to the subject which at present is more especially under the reader’s consideration. _Cutting_ is often combined with clicking or forging, for both words signify the same act, implying the noise made by striking the toe or quarter of the hind shoe against the metal nailed to the forefoot. This sound is not generally considered pleasant by those who hear it; because, besides being of a monotonous character, it announces something to be the matter--either that the horse is not exactly in proper working condition, or that the journey has been a trifle too long for the strength of the animal, while the repeated blows endanger the retention of a fore shoe.

SHOE, DESIGNED WITH THE INTENTION OF ERADICATING CUTTING, AND OF RENDERING CLICKING AN IMPOSSIBILITY. ]

The smith generally is consulted to cure this defect. He, however, who regards the cause, will perceive that the eradication of the evil more concerns the stable than the forge. The man of the anvil, nevertheless, will put on a novel kind of shoe which, with all the confidence of ignorance, he shall assert must stay the annoyance. The remedy totally fails, and the horse is led to another forge. The new blacksmith picks up the foot, and, of course, is cunning enough to profit by what he there perceives. A different shoe is tried and pronounced an absolute remedy. Still, this disappoints; the quadruped seeks some other shoemaker. The next bit of iron leads to no new result. The clicking and the cutting only get worse during these numerous trials; till the proprietor becomes alarmed, and the horse is thrown up to undergo regular curative treatment.

The rest thus obtained often effects that which no change of shoe could accomplish. The smiths, however, are only to be blamed for pretending to perform impossibilities. The best veterinary surgeons in the kingdom having no better appliances, could have labored to no better result; the fact being that the kind of shoe which shall answer in all such cases, does not and cannot exist. That article has the best chance which is adopted when the owner deems it necessary to lighten the work of his exhausted servant. Thus, it is a matter of uncertainty which shoe will succeed. The first smith may, or perhaps the last will, prove the very clever tradesman in his employers’ estimation.

The next engraving is a type of the shoe commonly employed for the alleviation of this unpleasantness. The number of altered shapes and adapted peculiarities is infinite; but one pervading model is readily detected through all such modifications. There are, however, several shoes claimed as inventions by different smiths, and each is warranted to cure the most aggravated case of cutting or of clicking on the first application. The author has known many of these to fail; while the ordinary shoe often answers admirably, so the horse be “up” to his work, and not pushed too far or too hard.

The fact being, that flesh and blood, if overtasked, will flag, and no mechanical contrivance can anticipate the natural consequences of such exhaustion. Clicking and cutting are not local ailments; therefore, though they may be mitigated, they cannot be eradicated by any local application. They doubtless are both produced by the irregular movement of the feet; but the motion of the extremities is regulated by the condition of the body. If the reader is ever on a journey, and the horse he is guiding chances to click, the bearing-rein should be let down--if the driver sit behind harness disgraced by such an instrument of folly. Should that not succeed, accept the warning: pull up at the next tavern, and have the quadruped taken from the shafts, rubbed down and rested.

After a couple of hours spent by the traveler in the coffee-room, the journey may be resumed, though, of course, a longer stay will rather benefit than injure the steed; yet, in either case, the subsequent pace should be a little slackened; and if, on reaching home, the work is slightly lightened, the noise may never after startle the “ear of propriety.”

These remedies should always anticipate the setting in of winter; because wet roads necessitate heavier shoes, by which a severer blow can be inflicted. Nevertheless, the majority of horse owners are extremely careless about the necessities of the seasons. The winters, in this climate, are more generally characterized by their severity than remarkable for their mildness; yet the frost appears always to take horse proprietors by surprise. Gentlemen, to be sure, during this season allow their dumb servants to remain within the stable; but quadrupeds which have to work for their own and their masters’ sustenance, creatures which have to labor long and to labor hard, slaves which toil before the sun has risen and never cease till darkness has long set in, are never prepared for the season which in England seems a certainty.

A horse shoe is, however, not a perishable commodity, nor does its store necessitate any sacrifice. Supposing it were forged in the summer, and because of death or change, it should not suit in the winter, the smith, at such a period, would gladly accept its return. Many forges are comparatively idle during the warmer months, and any amount of winter shoes would be most thankfully manufactured. Then no one will employ the men; but scarcely does a severe frost or the snow set in, than people throng into the forge, all clamorous to have their horses’ shoes suited to the weather. They crowd the building; they even stop the roadway. The inside is full of men and horses--horses and men cluster deep about the entrance. The smiths have to work fast, and often hang over the fires for three nights and three days, without looking on a bed. Beer is abundant; but nature cannot labor continuously on any amount of stimulant, and the men ultimately sink, exhausted, to sleep soundly on a heap of old rusty horse shoes, while many voices are shouting and many anvils are ringing around them.

Such scenes might be prevented and the work much better done, would owners lay in a stock of shoes, properly frosted, against the coming winter. The labor executed during the leisure portion of the year would not be hastily performed by overtaxed workmen; the only extra charge such a provision would necessitate is the interest on the slight cost of the articles supplied: though very often even such an increase of expense would be avoided, since it is by no means uncommon for the smith’s account to remain longer than six months before it is liquidated; while the confusion, loss of time, and those accidents which often occur, would be banished.

Frosting or roughing, as it is termed, is generally performed in a coarse and careless manner, because of that excessive press of business amid which it is executed. In the first place, the shoe is hurriedly torn from the hoof, without the nails being properly unclinched, or any trouble being taken about the process. Should the proprietor expostulate, he only elicits an uncivil reply; for the journeyman is vexed with boisterous solicitations from a crowd of impatient customers, and irritable from inordinate fatigue. The shoe is then heated; after which the free extremities are turned downward with the hammer, and the ends are hastily beaten into a rude, sharp edge. In some particular cases, the toe is likewise favored by having a clip forged; but occasionally the toe is turned downward, forming a third and a front calkin. The article is thus rendered too short for the foot, and, with all shape destroyed, is nailed on to the hoof from which it was recently removed; and the animal is led from the forge wearing shoes supposed to be properly “frosted.”

The rudeness of the above process has long been appreciated by the more reflective portion of the public. To rectify it, various innovations have been proposed. The meditated improvements, however, have all sank into disuse, because of the attendant expense or of the necessitated exertion. A common man thinks it no trouble to remain through the night in the blacksmith’s forge, waiting for his turn, at an expensive, a ruinous, and an inefficient operation,--because other people do the same. But when his turn arrives, perhaps a new set of shoes is spoiled; for the ordinary “roughing” is generally of no service after the third day, the sharp calkins being by that time ground blunt.

The huge weight of the animal grinds the edges off the iron, especially upon London stones, so that in three days they are no better than ordinary calkins, and cease to enable the quadruped to progress on ice. The constant removal and renewal of the shoe--the horn each time having to be repierced by fresh nails--seriously injures the hoof, so that frequently animals are forced to remain idle because there remains no more horn on which to fix a fastening. Those horses which escape such a fate, nevertheless carry the scars which commemorate the period of frost for months afterward; for there is no horseman, who has the most trivial experience in such matters, but will bitterly complain of the damage done to the quadruped’s feet, when it is forced to work through the winter season.

Some person, many years ago, proposed to use nails with large steel sharp-pointed heads, during the prevalence of frost. This plan was tried, and signally failed. The constant renewal of the nails was found ruinous to the hoof; for the strongest of the projecting heads was unable to resist the grinding action of a horse’s foot longer than twenty-four hours. Then, many of the heads broke off while being driven, and not a few were fixed in a damaged condition, owing to the blows received from the heavy hammer of the smith.

A SHOE, INTENDED TO ENABLE A HORSE TO WORK IN FROST, WHICH IS FIXED ON TO THE FOOT WITH SHARP HEADED AND PROJECTING NAILS. ]

A SHOE, WITH POINTS, WHICH SCREW ON AND OFF, DESIGNED TO FIT A HORSE FOR WORK DURING FROSTY WEATHER. ]

Mr. White, however, proposed a plan concerning the utility of which Mr. Lupton, a living and a most intelligent writer, bears favorable evidence. Large holes, containing the thread of a female screw, are made through the heels of the winter shoes, and several steel points, manufactured with a male screw, adapted to the dimensions of the holes just mentioned. Whenever frost coats the roads with ice, all that is requisite a boy might perform. The hole in the shoe has to be cleared out, and afterward, with an instrument known as “a spanner,” one of the points, before alluded to, is screwed into the opening. When these points are worn down, they are easily renewed; thus the terrors of the frost are overcome without exposing the horse for hours to the chilly air, or yourself submitting to the incivilities of the forge.

On the above subject, the following is extracted from the excellent weekly newspaper _The Field_, and is here quoted because of the information it affords, and because of the lucid manner in which it explains the measures necessary to be pursued.

“About this time last season we inserted in _The Field_ an account of the plan of frosting horse shoes, recommended more than fifty years ago by Mr. White, veterinary surgeon, of Exeter. Since then, nearly one thousand sets of the sharp cogs used for this purpose have been sold by the engineer to whom we intrusted the task of making them; and the plan appears to give unqualified satisfaction. At the suggestion of several correspondents who have not seen our former article, we are induced to repeat the notice, with the addition of an engraving representing the tools necessary; these being a drill of the required size, which every smith possesses, and with which a hole is drilled in the heel of each shoe, and, if needed, in the toe also. These holes are then converted into female screws by means of two taps, (figs. 1 and 2,) one being slightly smaller than the other, so as to make a perfect female screw by using first the smaller one and then the larger. Besides these, a spanner (fig. 3) is required to fix on the cog firmly; and the cogs themselves (fig. 4) should be made by a competent smith. These may all be obtained of S. Morris, 50 Rathbone Place, Oxford Street, London, the price of the tools being six shillings, and of the cogs, three shillings per dozen. With this outlay, any shoeing smith can fit a set of shoes by drilling the heels, (and the toes, if the roads are very slippery, but for ordinary work the cogs in the heels are quite sufficient,) tapping them with the taps furnished to him, after which they are nailed on; and the horse so shod can in five minutes be roughed by his groom, by screwing a cog in each hole, with the aid of the spanner. It often happens that the roads become frozen after a horse leaves home; but if the groom has the spanner and cogs in his pocket, he is independent of the smith, and neither the delay caused by ‘roughing,’ nor the danger from its omission, is incurred. A specimen shoe, properly fitted, may be seen at the office of _The Field_.”--_December 20, 1861._

FIG. 4
FIG. 1
FIG. 2
FIG. 3
]

The plan is excellent, but it requires a little forethought and a slight expenditure of ready cash. The tools for the tapping, or making the female screw holes, and for the points, Mr. Lupton obtains from Birmingham; the former at a cost of five shillings--the last for one penny or three half pence each. Tapping a set of shoes is by the smith charged fourpence; and for so small an outlay the gentleman just named escapes the unpleasantness and the annoyance which are inseparable from the old method of “roughing” horses during frosty weather.

The author believes he has now touched upon all the _necessary_ heads connected with the subject he is at present considering; still this article cannot be closed without apprising the reader of a practice not unusual in some forges, but never indulged in by the respectable tradesman. This is, paring and rasping the horse’s foot till it be small enough to fit the shoe, rather than kindle a fire and forge a new set which shall suit the feet of the animal. It may to some readers seem like a jest, to write seriously about the horse’s shoes being too tight; but it is, indeed, no joke to the quadruped which has to move in such articles. The walk is strange, as though the poor creature were trying to progress, but could obtain no bearing for its tread. The legs are all abroad, and the hoofs no sooner touch the ground than they are snatched up again. The head is carried high, and the countenance denotes suffering. It is months before the horn is restored to its normal condition. The animal must, during this period, remain idle in the stable; and, that the reader may be enabled to recognize the foot, under such circumstances, the last illustration was introduced.

It is trusted that whoever may possess an animal which is thus treated, will, in the first instance, secure the evidence as to fact from three or four of the principal veterinary surgeons; then enforce, with its utmost rigor, the law against the individual who has knowingly been guilty of this most heartless attempt at a positive fraud.

The horse is so entirely given into the hands of man, and is so submissive to his treatment, that the active supervision of its master is doubly necessary for its protection. While the present mode of nailing is continued, every proprietor willfully exposes his quadruped to danger who sends the creature to be shod. Any journeyman may, therefore, be pardoned if, occasionally, the foot be pricked; but the pains and the labor required to adjust a hoof to a shoe of small dimensions are absolute proof of evil design, and are irrefutable testimony which should forbid the remotest thought of leniency toward the offender.