Remarks on French shoeing [or a review of Jos. Goodwin's work entitled The King's farrier] / by an English shoeing smith [subscribed Menalcas, i.e. Bracy Clark].

  • Clark, Bracy, 1771-1860.
Date:
1830?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on French shoeing [or a review of Jos. Goodwin's work entitled The King's farrier] / by an English shoeing smith [subscribed Menalcas, i.e. Bracy Clark]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Remarks on French Shoeing, by an False philosophy, from its glitter, is sure to attract more notice from the public, than the more slow and patient workings and investigations of truth. Ptolomy’s false system of astronomy gained a decided advantage over the more philosophical and wary truths of Pythagoras, and was hardly received till con¬ firmed by Copernicus, and the irresistible demonstrations of Newton in later times. As much ado has been lately made about French shoeing, with unparalleled effrontery and ignorance of the subject, as though some new and unknown art had suddenly burst upon the world, with properties attributed to it that never in the least belonged to it, and which statements and assertions, boldly advanced, have much misled the public; so it appears nec.essary to relieve the public from this delusion, to let the scythe of criticism pass over it, and reduce this luxuriant plant to its proper dimensions, for not a little confusion has been created by it; it has also served to debase our shoeing very much, by introducing into practice a worse shoe, and a still worse mode of nailing, than we ever heretofore had been used to, and which has rendered of late more severe curbs, branches, and bits to our horses than we ever recollect to have seen before. As to the French mode of shoeing, it is in reality nothing different from the English, but in being more coarsely executed, arising from causes we shall presently state, and in fact, is differing nothing- in principle from it. Let us first examine the pretence for introducing French shoeing among us, and we shall see his grounds are as bad as his reasoning is false ; for he states, on very foose authority, if authority it can be called, that the French have few or no lame horses from their mode of shoeing. Certainly, nothing is easier, with some men, than to make assertions ; and pity it is, often, that both time and labour is necessary to disprove such assertions, even though idle and groundless. Any one has only to go into France, as we have done, and properly examine their horses’ feet, and he will find lame horses enough, and feet hideously elongated from contraction generally. And also their best writers and veterinarians have admitted and lamented the miserable state of their horses’ feet. No one has more ably written in France on shoeing than Lafosse ; and what does he say ?—he first complained of the general ill effects of shoeing, and after stating the fact, was led to apprehend that it proceeded from the want of pressure on the frog, and so laid the foundation of that absurd doctrine which has proved such a seduction and pitfal to our English veterinarians, and produced such a train of misconception and evil,— and with these views he was led into the use of the low-heeled shoe. Now, there would have been no occasion for all this, had their horses gone, as this writer states, “ almost invariably well.” Has he never heard of such a word in French as Encastalure ? Perhaps not; or, if he saw it, would he probably understand what it meant, the very evil complained of in all their works, from Soleysel to Bourgelat;