A represents the foot before treatment; B the same foot after nine days’ treatment, when the heels had widened 3/4 inch; and C the same foot at the end of the thirty-nine days’ treatment, at which date the frog was an excellent-looking one, and the foot had increased an inch in width.[A]

[Footnote A:  Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics, vol. v., p. 100]

[Illustration:  FIG. 74.—­THE CHANGES IN FORM OF A CONTRACTED FOOT TREATED WITH SMITH’S EXPANSION SHOE]

In 1893, at a meeting of the Midland Counties Veterinary Medical Association, the late Mr. Olver said he had applied this shoe to a valuable hunter that had gone so lame that he could scarcely put his foot to the ground.  After a fortnight’s application, and by the assistance of the double screw in the shoe, the heel was forced out.  Then the horse was put to work with the shoe on, and he had hunted the whole of the last season in a perfectly sound condition.[A]

[Footnote A:  Veterinary Record, vol. vi., p. 143]

F.D.  McLaren, M.R.C.V.S., writes:[A] ’I resolved to try one of Captain Smith’s shoes in a case where the hoof was badly contracted, and where the frog had entirely disappeared, there being also slight lameness.  The roof rapidly expanded, and every other day the nut was moved on a bit to keep the cross-piece tight.  I then had the cross-piece bent downwards a little to prevent the nut pressing on the rapidly-growing frog.[B] After another fortnight or so, I had a shoe made with clips resting against the inside of the bars,[C] and the next time he was shod these were also dispensed with.  It is now a year ago since the animal recovered his frog, and he still has the largest frog in the stable, and the hoof shows no sign of contraction.’

[Footnote A:  Ibid., vol. vi., p. 183]

[Footnote B:  The italics are mine (H.C.R.).]

[Footnote C:  The expanding shoe itself was here evidently dispensed with, and an ordinary shoe with bar-clips used in its stead (H.C.R.).]

(b) De Fay’s.—­Among other shoes of the expansion class may be mentioned that of De Fay.  Like the preceding, it is a shoe with a flat bearing surface, and provided with bar-clips.  It is, however, un hinged.  The requisite degree of periodic expansion is in this case arrived at by a forcible widening of the heels of the shoe, accomplished by bending the substance of which it is made, and for this purpose the instrument illustrated in Fig. 75 is employed.

The foot is first properly trimmed by levelling the heels and thinning the sole on each side of the frog.  The shoe is then fixed by nails in the ordinary manner, taking care that the last nails come not too far back, and that the clips rest evenly and firmly on the inside of the bars.

The dilator, hoof-spreader, or vice, as it is variously called, is then applied, its two jaws (a and b) fitting against the inner edge of the shoe at the heels.  Careful note is taken of the width of the hoof as measured on the graduated scale (e, e), and the double screw (g, h) revolved by means of the wrench (k), until the opening of the jaws thus obtained registers an expansion of 1/12 to 1/8 inch.