HORSESHOEING. An artificial protection of some kind for the horse's foot has been well said to be "one of the penalties whielt civilization inexorably exacts." When it is remembered that every time that a horse is shod it implies damage to the foot and that the hest and most expert shoeing of necessity inflicts some injury, the im portance of horseshocing to the horse-owner is evident. All authorities agree "that there is no such thing as absolute immunity from an evil which must always exist in inverse ratio to the skill displayed in the execution of the work." The value of the domesticated horse to man is in his fleetness and strength. It was early iseov e red. however, that his usefulness was limited by the of his feet, so that the history of horsesho•ing is practically an account of the various devices that have led up to the modern shoe.
The entire weight of the hotly, as well RS the pre—tire of every muscular effort, is largely con centrated in the feet. The nails or claws and their eorresponding digits of other animals have in solipeds disappeared from atrophy, with the exception of the middle digit, which became much more developed and surrounded by an hypertro phied nail called the hoof, the structure of which is designed to meet every requirement of the ani• mat except those that have devolved upon it sine() its domestication, such as 'constant traveling over hard mails or stony ground. Should the horn of the hoof be worn away, the structure% which it was designed to protect arc of necessity injured, the animal becomes lame, unable to work, and (onsiitiently ceases to have any value. According to Diollo•us, Cinnanms. and Appian entire armies were occasionally 1 t the bre/lk• ing down of their horses by reason of worn hoofs. Xenophon sought to solve the problem by making who hoofs hard and tough: and front other Greek and Roman writers we learn that resort was 11:14 to socks or sandals (ippopodes, embatai, carbali nal, sofa, etc.), These were clumsy as well as ineffectual means of protection, but, strangely enough. they have their unalern counterpart in the straw sandals still to be seen in various parts of the Japanese Empire. According to Beckmann. Bcitriior zu• Geschicht• drr Erfindungen zig. 1;92), it was greatly to be doubted whether the Romans practiced, as was alleged. the art of shoeing, by attaehing a metal plate or rim to the horse's foot : a doubt strengthened by the fact that on no monuments or sculptures (so far as was then known) in which horses appear could any evidence of shoeing be seen. On the other hand, a bas-relief dating from the second century. at pres
ent in the MIlse11111 of Avignon, shows a chariot drawn by horses which are unmistakably shod; and Cohen in his Description des in on no it's frap• sous I'Empire Boma» tells of a medal sup posed to date from the time of Domitian com memorating a cavalry victory upon which was a design of two horseshoes, surrounded by two twined serpents. Another coin, in the British :Museum. from Tarentum, about n.c. 300, is sup posed to represent a horse being shod. Accord ing to historical writers the horses of the Huns when they invaded Europe were shod. Some evi denee that nail shoes were employed previous to the sixth century is perhaps supplied by Chifllet (Monuments de in monarehir Eranraisr), who tells of a fragment supposed to be part of a horseshoe found by him at Tournay in the tomb of Childerie (King of the Franks, died A.D.
Absolute evidence as to nail shoes in the ninth and tenth centuries is comparatively plentiful, not the least important being the Tac tic-a Imperaloris Leonia of Emperor Leo VI., dating from the ninth century. There is no reason to doubt that the Arabs of the Irejira (xi). ("22) shod their horses with iron; while, according to the Chroniqucs de Saint-Denis, Char lemagne was capable of breaking with his hands an 'iron' shoe belonging to his horse. In the nature of things it NV/I, not likely that shoeing with iron was at all common in the early part of the diddle Age:. William the Conqueror is be lieved to have introduced the art into Britain. For centuries the art of the shoesmith ranked with that of the scholar and bard in England and France, and not only noblemen, bishops, and squires. but even kings practiced the craft. In fact, accord ing to Solleysel (c.1665), a knowledge of the art was a necessity for all persons of high estate, which explains the fact that many of the oldest families of England. France, and Poland have to-day a horseshoe device in their insignia. Oc casionally shoeing took the form of extravagance, as when Popp:ca, the wife of Nero, had her mules shod with shoes of gold—a fantastic fashion often recorded in history. As late as 1616 the English Ambassador to France entered Paris riding a horse whose silver shoes were so lightly fastened on that when he came to a spot where "eminent men or beautiful women were standing" he caused his steed to prance, and so cast its shoes, which were scrambled for by the crowd. His 'argeutier,' wearing a rich livery, replaced the shoes with similar ones just as loosely fastened.