I have an old book published in 1887 called "Artistic Horse-Shoeing A
Practical and Scientific Treatise Giving Improved Methods Of Shoeing, With
Special Directions For Shaping Shoes To Cure Different Diseases Of The Foot, And
For The Correction Of Faulty Action In Trotters." by Prof. Geo. E.
Rich.
I wish I could show you some of the pictures of shoes. There is
one called a stifle shoe. It is a flat shoe with two pencil thin wires
crossing over each other as if to give it a spring effect. I can't imagine
how that worked. The drawings of the horses feet and legs are incredible.
The variety of shoes is even more so.
In the back of the book are "recipes" for illnesses and injuries.
Weak eyes or hooks, bleed two gallons.
Lung Fever, bleed 4 gallons, blister over the lungs.
Disease of the Kidneys, Blister over kidneys.
Colic, take laudanum, sulphuric ether, water, milk and drench, ( I don't
know if that means dump it on the horse or make him drink it) and if
not better in fifty minutes, bleed and repeat the drench.
Founder, Bleed 3 or 4 gallons or until he falls. (I swear!) Give a mixture
of aloes, drachms gamboge, oil of sassafras and follow with sassafras tea.
Turn up his feed and fill them full of boiling hot lard, bathe his legs in hot
water and rub them well. This will never fail to cure in forty-eight hours.
It's a wonder horses and mules aren't extinct with that kind of medicine!
So, I guess some of it must have worked. This is one of my favorite books. Guess
where I found it?? e-BAY!
