No. 13. Old Style Paring out the Foot. New Style.
No. 14. Contracted Foot after Treatment.
CORNS.
The pressure of the bor on one side of the seat of the disease, and of the horny substance of a contracted heel on the other side, added to a tight shoe, causes inflammation, which, when it becomes chronic, is styled a corn.
A corn may be detected by paring the foot close. It is not necessary, as recommended by some authorities, to use pincers, squeezing the hoof all around to find the corn, thereby giving the horse unnecessary pain. They are to be found only in the heel, and do not result from bruises, but from pressure.
Treatment.—The shoe having been removed, the inside of the hoof should be pared out thoroughly all around, and if a long hoof, it should be shortened. If the corn is visible, the heel should be pared down and the bors weakened, opening the heel as far back as possible (see Plate No. 11), and fitting an open shoe, so as to throw the pressure off the heel. The pressure having been removed, the corn will disappear, or grow down in the quarter, in which case the farrier should fit a bor shoe, so as to throw the weight off the diseased heel and partly on the frog, the elastic surface of which will prevent severe pressure.
If a horse has a long foot, the pressure is more on the corns, because his foot is in front of him, and an over-proportion of his weight comes on his heels. A horse with a long foot is like a man with a thick sole to his boot and no heels, for with his heels he strikes the ground first.