Brogue (shoe)

“ It is important that flexion to a right angle should not be possible. In fact, a slight degree of equinus is essential in order to secure [51] the locking of the knee in extension, exactly as with the fixed foot (compare figures 73, 74 and 75 with figure 72) , and as on the shoe there is always a heel which makes us walk normally in slight equinus, the two feet will be similar in appearance, the slight movement of the artificial foot being sufficient to allow a rolling movement of the sole upon the ground (Figs. 77 to 86) . ”

“ If the latter are deficient in length, raise them by swelling the branches or by low heel-calks.
Fig. 217.
Toe-crack immobilized by lateral toe-clips: a, bearing-surface left free from pressure; b, heads of the rivets (nails) driven through holes previously drilled.
The shoe may be open, or a bar-shoe, or a short shoe with a rubber frog- and buttress-pad. Whatever expands the quarters closes a toe-crack. The Defay’s shoe (Fig. 206) , or the Chadwick spring beneath a rubber pad, or beneath a bar-shoe with leather sole, if the frog be much shrunken, will be of service. ”

“ We examine carefully to see that no stub of nail is left in. The heels will be found long and hard. Our object being frog-pressure, to get the vivifying action of this tactile organ upon the ground, we pare down the whole wall; we soon come to signs of a corn—perhaps a drop of blood starts; but as we do not intend to put the weight upon the heels, we are not alarmed. Having cut all we can from the heels and still finding that the frog, when the shoe is laid on, can not touch the ground, we knock down the last two calks and draw the heel of the shoe thin ”

“ They assist in widening the hoof, and lessen shock when the foot is set to the ground. These are all matters which favor the growing down of unbroken horn.
When the crack gaps widely, and the frog is small and deep in the foot a shoe with bar-clips (Defay’s shoe) , or a Chadwick spring, with bar-shoe and leather sole may be used. It is not impossible, indeed, to obtain a cure by using an ordinary open flat shoe, though much will depend upon the other lesions that may be present, the nature of the hoof, and the service required of the animal. ”

“ With the bar removed, the outward movements of the frog under pressure are naturally rendered of no account, and a proper and intermittent expansion of the wall denied it. The same evil follows, though to a less extent, excessive paring of the sole.
The shape of the bearing surface of the shoe is often to be blamed. Where this is concave—'seated'—and the 'seating' is carried back to the heels, it is easy to see that, when weight is on the foot, there is an ever-present tendency for the bearing edge of the wall to slide down towards the inner edge of the shoe. ”

“ Faulty shoeing is the great predisposing cause, or else the presence of small stones or other objects between the sole and shoe. Lameness caused by bruises of the frog is best treated by putting the foot at once in a bath of cold water in order to prevent suppuration, which will frequently be effective if the disease is caught at the beginning. ”

“ In the case of flat-foot, or dropped sole, for instance, insufficient seating will lead to undue pressure of the web of the shoe upon the sole, and in that way bring about bruising of the sensitive sole beneath.
Shoes with heels or calks too high, by destroying the counter-pressure of the frog with the ground, serve to bring about a series of changes we have described under contraction, and again result in pinching and bruising of the sensitive structures. ”

“ This annoyance is frequently caused by undue use of the toe, when the heel is lame and sore from contraction and corns. When the horse has the frog well on the ground and uses his heel without shrinking he is not apt to stumble.
TO INCREASE COMFORT.
In dry weather, or when a horse with a hard, lifeless hoof is shod with the Goodenough shoe, and shrinks from the unaccustomed pressure of the frog on the ground, nothing is so grateful to his feet as cold water. ”

“ A long toe is worn down and high heels are reduced to their proper level by friction. Not so a foot protected by an iron shoe. Wear is stopped, and a disproportionate hoof becomes more and more disproportionate. Temporary alterations of the position of the foot do little harm because they are permitted, within a margin, by the movement of joints and by the elasticity of muscles. ”

“ A contracted hoof, pain from corns, or any inflammation causes a horse to seek a new bearing. In doing this he strikes himself. Blacksmiths make "interfering shoes," welding side-pieces and superfluous calks upon their clumsy contrivances, and sometimes succeed in preventing the [Pg 35] symptom, but they never remove the cause. Few horses with natural feet, good circulation, and shod with a light shoe, will ever interfere. In all such cases, take off the heavy shoe, cure the contraction, get an even bearing, and let nature have at least a momentary chance. ”

“ In founder or chronic laminitis, where the sole of feet are dropped, caused by the displacement of the weight-bearing bones of the foot, fix the feet by lowering the quarters and heels so as to get as much frog pressure as is possible, without making the foot tender, and your foot is ready for the shoe. A shoe for a dropped sole foot must be a bar shoe, thick at the toe and thin at the heels, with a wide thin bar to receive the frog pressure. ”

“ If the case is recent, shoe as advised in our paragraph upon "Incipient Unsoundness," being sure to cut the heel well down, putting the bearing fully upon the frog and three-quarters of the foot. If the hoof is weak from long contraction and defective circulation, lower the heels and whole wall, until the frog comes well upon the ground, and shoe with a "slipper," or "tip," made by cutting off a light shoe just before the middle calk, drawing it down and lowering the toe-calk partially. ”

“ No ordinary shoe, except a few devised for the purpose, such as the Charlier or the tip, allows the frog to come in contact with the ground. This we take to be the main factor in the causation of contracted heels, especially with a predisposition already present in the foot itself. In the words of Lungwitz: 'Regarded from this point of view, there is no greater evil than shoeing. It abolishes the necessary counter-pressure, and thus interferes with expansion. ”

“ A sound foot is not injuriously affected, but a very thin sole is, and so also is a sole which has been bruised by a picked up stone. Even a slight bruise becomes serious if pressure is allowed to remain active over the injured part. Lameness increases, serous fluid is effused between the horn and sensitive part, or even hæmorrhage may take place.' [A]
[Footnote A: Hunting, Veterinary Record, vol. xiv., p. 593.]
The Treatment of Chronic Bruised Sole offers no special difficulty. Removal of the cause (in nearly every case incorrect bearing of the shoe) is the first consideration. ”

“ If the heels are pared away so that all the weight is received on the frog, or if the same result is attained by the application of a bar shoe, the animal is excessively lame. The muscles of the leg and shoulder shrink away and often tremble as the animal stands at rest. After months of lameness the foot is found to be shrunken in its diameter and apparently lengthened; the horn is dry and brittle and has lost its natural gloss, while circular ridges, developed most toward the heels, cover the upper part of the hoof. ”

“ By these terms is meant the injury to the inside of the fetlock joint which results from bruising by the opposite foot. Possibly some small proportion of such injuries are traceable to the system of shoeing, to the form of shoe, or to the action of the horse. They are, with few exceptions, the direct result of want of condition in the horse and are almost confined to young horses, old weak horses, or animals that have been submitted to some excessively long and tiring journey. The first thing a horse-owner does when his horse "brushes" is to send him to the farrier to have his shoes altered. ”

“ If the joint is anchylosed, no treatment can relieve it, and the patient must either be put to very slow work or kept for breeding purposes only.
"Prick in shoeing" is an injury which should be considered under the head of punctured wounds of the foot. The nails by which the shoe is fastened to the hoof may produce an injury followed by inflammation and suppuration in two days, by penetrating the soft tissues directly or by being driven so deep that the inner layers of the horn of the wall are pressed against the soft tissues with such force as to crush them. ”

“ The second impulse was to arise in his might, put on a stout pair of the Terwilliger three-dollar brogans—the strongest shoe made, having been especially devised for the British Infantry in the Soudan—and garments suitable to the occasion, namely, a mackintosh and pair of broadcloth trousers, and go to the rescue of the distressed domestic. ”

“ Many mules are clubfooted, especially behind, where it seems to cause little or no inconvenience. Severe cases of clubfoot may be cured by cutting the tendons, but as a rule special shoeing is the only measure of relief that can be adopted. The toe should not be pared, but the heels are to be lowered as much as [Pg 399] possible and a shoe put on with a long, projecting toe piece, slightly turned up, while the heels of the shoe are to be made thin. ”

“ This natural bearing surface is what we want to utilize in shoeing. We put on a shoe merely to prevent excessive wear of the hoof. If we can protect the wall the frog can take care of itself, and we have only so to apply our shoe that we do not damage any useful structure or interfere with any natural function. ”

“ When the shoe thus described is set so as to secure frog-pressure, as hereinafter directed, a horse may be shod without violation of nature's laws; foot disease, under fair conditions, will become almost impossible, and the useless refuse-stock, broken down by the old method, may be restored to usefulness. ”

“ Though the opponents of hot fitting draw a lurid picture of the direful consequences of applying a hot shoe to the hoof, it is only the abuse of the practice that is to be condemned. If a heavy shoe at a yellow heat be held tightly pressed against a hoof which has been pared too thin, till it embeds itself, serious damage may be done. But a shoe at a dark heat may be pressed against a properly dressed hoof long enough to scorch, and thus indicate to the farrier the portions of horn that should be lowered without appreciable injury to the hoof and to the ultimate benefit of the animal. ”

“ When a shoe is seated from one side to the other so as to produce a saucer shaped surface harm is done to the foot. Such a shoe presents no level bearing-surface, and the weight of the horse pressing the wall on an inclined plane causes the foot to be pinched or compressed in a manner which soon causes lameness. ”

“ The bearing-surface of the branches, however, must always remain horizontal. The shoe always requires deep concaving, especially along the inner branch of the sole. If the quarters are weak, the walls defective, or there are corns, cracks, loose walls, or other diseases of the hoof, a bar-shoe should be selected. ”

“ The shoe should fit air-tight, except for an inch or so on both sides of the crack. Two lateral toe-clips (Fig. 217) are drawn up, and the wall between these clips is cut down from a twelfth to an eighth of an inch.
Fig. 218.
Spiral drill for boring the hole into which a round wire nail is driven to fasten a toe-crack: (a) three sided point of drill (similar to the point of a stilet of a cæcal trocar) .
After the shoe has been nailed on tight the toe-crack should be immobilized. The best method is by buried nails. ”

“ IV. Walking with free flexion of the knee
A. Design.—The oldest type, which will suffice for studying the general conditions of stability, is that [34] of Marks, with a fixed foot shaped out of the same piece of wood as the leg: the ankle joint—several types of which we shall describe later—does not affect the question of stability.
The appliance is made entirely of wood; it is strong and light.
Nothing need be added to the description already given of the fitting and method of attachment of the thigh piece, which ends below in a curved "condyle," [4] which fits into the top of the leg piece. ”

“ A well-formed shoe which [Pg 176] does not rest firmly upon the hoof, or which has been shifted as a result of careless nailing, may as readily cause bruising of the quarters as neglected shoeing. The latter causes, as a rule, corns of the sole. It is very rarely that corns are caused by stones fastened between the frog and branches of the shoe or in unshod hoofs by pebbles becoming wedged in the white line. ”