a veterinary surgeon and a professor of high degree and repute.
But how is it that so many people recommend the Charlier shoe for the fore feet only? The fore feet appear to have to carry more weight than the hind ones, as part of the shoulders and the neck and head are in front of them; but certainly they were so constructed by the Almighty as to admit of this. In the case of a saddle horse or pack horse, the hind feet are called upon to share the extra weight. In the case of draught horses, the hind ones do nearly all the propulsion at the same time that (in shod horses) they take nearly all the weight, at the time of starting, which is the heaviest pull. In countries where shoeing is only partially practised the horses are shod in front, and their hind feet left bare. This is the case in Rome, as it is at the Cape, and the American farmers before cited acted thus, and so do many others; but nowhere are horses to be seen which are shod behind whilst their fore feet go bare. There is a striking anomaly of theory about this. Of course the theory of shoeing is wrong ab initio, and perhaps this accounts for the various views taken of it. ‘Impecuniosus’ was not the man to do things by halves. He began by using the Charlier shoes only in front, and he relates of a mare, which had twice fallen as a hack, that she was benefited by them. He then shod her behind also, à la Charlier, and he says, ‘after the first few days she never made a “peck” on the road, and felt quite different under me—so
