Hippodonomia, or the true structure, laws, and economy, of the horse's foot: also podophthora, or a ruinous defect in the principle of the common shoe detected ... with a proposition for a new principle of shoeing / [Bracy Clark].

  • Clark, Bracy, 1771-1860
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hippodonomia, or the true structure, laws, and economy, of the horse's foot: also podophthora, or a ruinous defect in the principle of the common shoe detected ... with a proposition for a new principle of shoeing / [Bracy Clark]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tlie hoof, will also occasion endless difference even in the best hands. All these causes, simple as they may appear, had cast a formidable and almost impenetrable veil over these arts. There is also other ways of viewing these things, and entrapping the understanding, rather than entering into a troublesome inquiry about them; and if a complaint is made of the bad going of the horse, it is easily stated that it arises from too hard service; or if it be in great towns, that it is their going on the stones. \ et do we find these defects as frequently in the country as in towns, and as often among horses which are hardly used at all as with those which are fully employed. If the stable-keeper is asked why his horses are so tender before ? and why there needs so much trouble to keep them up—so much so, that all pleasure in riding is destroyed ? his answer is, “ Why, horses to be sure will by use become leg-weary, and every one who knows any thing about horses knows that well enoughand with a smile at the simplicity of the inquirer, he quits the subject. If any one, not having the usual awe of this character, should ask the coachman why he wants two or three kinds of irons to be put in his horse’s mouth, his answer will be, “ Why, would any one be so mad as to attempt to drive without them ?” Then if you are appre- hensive of your horses’ falling,—what is the cause of this ? “ Go ask the smiths ; they can tell you better about it—they don’t shoe them safely.” If the shoeing-smith be inquired of respecting this matter, and how does the horse become tender ?—“ Why, it is to-be-sure from always standing in the dry litter of the stables ; and that is plain enough, for the hind feet are never affected, because they are more in the dung and moisture, which makes it clear enough; ’ and thus this business is disposed of without further trouble among them. And these answers would serve to hinder a deeper research into the actual causes of them. Such were the usual apprehensions and