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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 EMM 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
 BIOLOGY 
 LIBRAE 
 
AN 
 
 EPISTLE 
 
 w 
 
 TO 
 
 Mr. PROFESSOR COLEMAN. 
 
 ON THE 
 
 Effects his Practice has had on the Cavalry of the 
 
 IHn&etalUngiJom: 
 
 WITH 
 
 REMARKS OJV .4 LETTER, 
 
 Printed by Mess. Townsons', Chatham, 
 
 AND ADDRESSED TO 
 
 H.R. H. the PRINCE REGENT, 
 
 In avowed Vindication of the said Practice. 
 
 Those to whom the curious Letter above alluded to has 
 not been handed, are informed that it may be seen at the 
 Institution, Oxford-Street. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 Printed for the Author by Ridden, Steel's Court, Lee's Mews, 
 Grosvenor-square ; and maybe had at the Institution for the 
 Practical Improvement of Veterinary Science, Oxford-Street 
 nearly opposite Bond-Street, and of all Booksellers, 
 PRICE ONE SHILLING. 
 
L- 
 
 . 
 
 
 " 
 
■5F?»7 
 
 an Cptstle 
 
 PROFESSOR COLEMAN 
 
 Qui dit docteur, ne dit pas tonjours un hoinme docte mai> un homrae 
 qui devroit etrc docte St * Real - 
 
 SIR, 
 
 A publication written avowedly to 
 serve the cause of your veterinary practice, and 
 in condemnation of that which has been for many 
 years practised by Captain Blagrave, and which 
 has, a little time ago, been brought by him more 
 immediately under public attention, the arro- 
 gance of : which publication is only exceeded by 
 its vulgarity and impertinence, having been put 
 into my hands, I shall not apologize for noticing 
 a few of its prominent parts to you, under whose 
 order or connivance it is not unnatural to sup- 
 pose it was written. 
 
 M373584 
 
The* person whom you have chosen, or what 
 is, in fact, the same thing; who has taken upon 
 himself to advocate jour, cause, has, in the 
 abundance of his zeal, thought proper to address 
 his farrago of assertions to a personage who has 
 ever favored all attempts at improvement; and in 
 whom the arts have never failed to meet protec- 
 tion : his name has therefore given it a kind of 
 consequence ; otherwise unanswered, and un- 
 noticed might it have remained for me, the very 
 first page being so gloriously absurd as to deter 
 any person whose good opinion is worth a second 
 thought, from cutting open the leaves. 
 
 Yet, as yaur loving relative has taken up- 
 on him to doubt whether the Prince Regent 
 has patronized this Institutionf, and as its 
 
 * This man, I have heard, was a quondam dealer in bon- 
 nets, bombasines, sarcenets and shoe-ties, but when you, 
 his cousin, attained your present rank, spurning the yard-wand, 
 Iris mighty heart beat also for preferment. Twelve months 
 under your tuition dubbed him doctor ; and exchanging his 
 tlucapes for a diploma, he slipped into a regiment, where his 
 ignorance might have dozed 'espectably on through life, had 
 he not, in the plenitude of his vanity floundered before the 
 public in your defejice. 
 
 f Ho v imperfect must have been his means of obtaining 
 information ; for surely even he would not have had the 
 iu'.rclihood to have asserted that the Prince's name was used 
 without permission, unless he had really supposed it to have 
 been the case ; but if he will condescendingly move his doc- 
 
Avowed supporters, whose rank and equestri- 
 an knowlege certainly entitle them to much con- 
 sideration, may feel their actions satirized, and 
 judgments called in question, I take up my 
 pen ; not to support Captain Blagrave's system of 
 managing horses — the almost* invariable success 
 attending its practice speaking loud enough on 
 that head — not to prove that the great personage 
 and the noblemen, &c. who are its supporters, 
 
 tonal limbs into the offices of the Institution, he may see the 
 permission in the hand-writing of one of H. R. H's principal 
 attendants, which testimony he will hardly doubt. 
 
 * Respecting the Institution, I would relate a few facts.— 
 From a conviction of the superiority of the plan of shoeing 
 practised there, I have had repeated oppoitunities of observ- 
 ing the trials made by the smiths at our end of the town to 
 come at it, and really with considerable ingenuity and effect; 
 indeed, short as is the time since the Institution was opened, 
 it has manifestly operated to improve the general practice of 
 shoeing: not only in London, but its beneficial effects have 
 so far been felt in distant parts of the kingdom, that applica- 
 tions are daily making to Captain Blagrave for instructions, 
 and pupils offering from all quarters. Many who have receiv- 
 ed their education at your College, wandering in the dark as 
 they were left by you, now act upon this systemas far as they 
 understand it, and I am of opinion that every one of your 
 pupils would be glad to do it if he had an opportunity ; nay, 
 I have little doubt but even your loving coutin, convinced 
 of the fallacy of the theory he has attempted to exalt, 
 might be induced to open his eyes on the truth ! To 
 have done with this subject, I do not hesitate to affirm that 
 
6 
 
 are not *tlie dupss of novelty, which appellation 
 jour advocate has unblushh.gly given them, their 
 kuown characters falsjfvL.g ihe idea, but merely 
 to amuse them and myself by making a few cur- 
 sory remarks, and anking a fe -.v questions. 
 
 Your loving cousin's aspirations after notorie- 
 ty must have been very frevent indeed ! — fervent 
 beyond bearing. 'Poor man ! — and so this letter 
 of his was " a reply to a (kind of) Prospectus, 
 " said to be for the improved treatment of the 
 cc horses foot, the said p'au professing to *be un 
 " der the immediate patronage of the Prince 
 " Regent." I^ow, really, I wish, that previous to 
 pitching these blundering inuendos in the eves 
 of the Prince, he had condescended to seek for 
 better information. " He expected too, that 
 
 your theory from almost its fiist introduction has been rapidly- 
 declining, and that a system resembling Captain Blagrave's 
 has in a like gradition bi en rising in the public esteem : this I 
 uVubt not is owing to the approbation and celebrity it obtain- 
 ed among military men during the time he was stationed in 
 the Sussex district, and from his communication of it to some 
 particular friends. 
 
 * What elegance of style ! I observe also in his title-page 
 he says " shoeing the foot of the horse" : perhaps his next 
 publication may broach a very new system, and we may be 
 directed to shoe his tail, or some other absurdity, such as 
 
 placing, the frog on the ground bar? and frog- not to be cut 
 
 ---w:de heels in the wrong place,— and the expansion of the 
 fo .t at e- ery step— as have been heretofore successfully taught 
 and practised by you ! 
 
" you, Mr. Coleman (as head of the depart- 
 " ment) would have repelled so calumnious a 
 i* charge ; or at least that you would see the ne- 
 " cessity of some reply/' but, alas * he was 
 doomed to disappointment — What, you, 
 
 " High on a throne apart, superior raised" 
 
 to condescend " to answer one so professionally 
 insignificant as Captain Blagrave" ! — 'twas out 
 
 of nature your pen was reserved for higher 
 
 themes— your movements " In all the majesty of 
 borrowed prose" for. an opponent worthy of you j 
 and your amiable advocate was left to himself. 
 But was there no understanding between you ? 
 — no friendly messenger to waft him your wishes? 
 — had no other means been attempted to answer 
 this formidable Prospectus ? — to detect fal- 
 lacy and error ? It appears not : so he, even 
 he, your cousin, " humble individual," as he 
 says, and as I make doubt he is, arises in his 
 might, sets on, and deals about his dirt with this 
 surprising vigor and dexterity. 
 
 Now, Sir, to be serious for a moment, I think 
 it not impossible, and without the aid of divina- 
 tion, to supply a better reason than even pro- 
 fessional pride for your silence in this business: 
 Captain Blagrave's Prospectus, without at all 
 mincing the matter, tells you that " however he 
 " may admire and acknowledge your anatomicaJ 
 
? skill, he differs with you,, in toto, as to your 
 " boasted practice of shoeing;" to which he 
 adds, " that the lives and limbs of " many 
 " valuable horses have fallen victims to its 
 <c absurdity. Here is no shuffling — and the rea- 
 son appears plain why you have not replied— 
 why the task was shifted to your gentlemanly 
 advocate. It is because you could not — it is be- 
 cause you know, that with regard to the living 
 animal yon have reasoned and acted upon talse 
 principles — principles which on every account, 
 particularly with respect to the noble and costly 
 creature who has so long suffered by them, 
 ought to be retracted. As to Captain Blagrave, 
 he pretends not to professional, that is, anatomi- 
 cal skill — but nobody will doubt his perfect know- 
 ledge of the living animal, which has been the 
 result of the practice of his whole life, and from 
 repeated and successful trials upon all kinds of sub- 
 jects. Is not knowledge so gained, founded upon 
 a basis far more firm than mere theory ? Not that 
 I would decry professional attainments, except 
 when they lead to a promulgation of delusive the- 
 ory, which few will doubt is the case* with you. 
 
 * I reccollect the story of two gentlemen, one of whom 
 had studied at the university, and from thence had emerged, 
 fraught with the greatest part of his original ignorance ; and 
 the other, who, with little oppc/rtunity of acquiring know- 
 ledge, except from self-application, had become no contemp- 
 
Your worthy advocate is, it seems, rather 
 startled at observing Mr. Goodwin's name part- 
 nered in this horrific Prospectus; and, in order 
 to find an excuse, most cliarilaUy imputes to him 
 a few trifling' peccadilloes, such as quackery, 
 avarice, public imposition, and the like, which 
 motives he asserts have led this gentleman to such 
 professional prostitution and renegadoship. Now 
 these, however trifling they may appear to your 
 loving cousin, being rather serious charges, shall 
 shortly be answered seriously. At present, I am 
 called to a subject upon which he and I per- 
 fectly agree.' He says, " Unfortunately there 
 are men in all ranks, who will sanction what 
 their judgments condemn, (he might have added 
 —who, in spite of the very noon-day beams of 
 truth will cling to error with the utmost pertina- 
 city,, and regardless of who or what suffers, so 
 long as it fills their pockets) " otherwise we 
 " should not have to lament the enormous in- 
 <c crease of quacks both in religion and politics} 
 
 • 
 , 1 _— . 
 
 tible scholar. They were disputing in company about some 
 point in literature, when the -former exclaimed " How is it 
 possible for you, who have never been at college, to know 
 anything about the matter?" "Sir," retorted the latter, 
 " from the whole tenor of our argument, it has, I trust, 
 been proved, that it is quite as possible for a man who ha» 
 not been at school to know a great deal, as it is for one pos- 
 sessed of that advantage, to know nothing."-,— Hoc credo. 
 
10 
 
 " as well as in medicine, and that in opposition 
 " to the most established truths." — Right-— right 
 — but let us extend the word quack to the ignor- 
 ant and imposing member of every profession, 
 whether regularly or irregularly bred — then, if 
 the " powers that be" considered the subject 
 rightly, not only this miserable hacker of hoofs 
 would be sent back to his sarcenets and shoe-ties 
 again, but even some diploma manufacturers 
 themselves might experience a tremor cordis. 
 What is your opinion, Sir ? 
 
 And now for Mr. Goodwin, with whom your 
 loving cousin has dealt so liberally. From the 
 general character of that gentleman, it is pretty 
 clear that he is not exactly a proper subject for 
 your relative's charitable imputations. I do 
 think that Mr. Goodwin would not sell his name 
 to any system, which, being founded in error, 
 must fall at the first glance of truth, and over- 
 whelm him in its ruins : but, granting that your 
 amiable advocate is aware of such impositions 
 being long and successfully practised, and from 
 a kind of self-consciousness so liberally bestows 
 bis benedictions on Mr. Goodwin, yet the trial 
 is hazardous. The impostor is ever writhing 
 under the rear of detection, which, though de- 
 layed, is pretty certain to come at last, and pro- 
 bably at a time when he is least prepared for it. 
 
 But, Mr. Goodwin, in his junction with Cap- 
 tain Blagrave, has acted, and acts from convic- 
 
11 
 
 tion. Long before his admission as a student at 
 the Veterinary* College, he had laboured to 
 perfect himself in the profession he chose to Fol- 
 low, lie, as well as Captain Blagravc, admits 
 jour anatomical skill, but with respect to the 
 adaptation of many parts of the animal he differs 
 from you wholly. It was by continually witness- 
 rng that he learned to avoid rouR errors — 
 from perpetually observing your practice, he 
 was in many instances taught to detect its fal- 
 lacy — and, it was by following the dictates of 
 his own reason that he became experienced enough 
 to act in diametrical opposition to your 
 practice. 
 
 * Tf Mr. Goodwin had gained no more knowledge from 
 his own application than he acquired at the College, he would 
 be a very unlit person to trust with the life or limbs of any 
 animal above the rank of a mill-hnrse. Nothing but a long, 
 varied and extensive practice could have made his abilities 
 what they are — could have placed him so very far out of the 
 reach of such clyster-pipes of the faculty as your -worthy advo- 
 cate- Indeed every rational, mind must be convinced how de- 
 plorably deficient in system *he veterinary art is as taught at 
 the College and practised in the army : and especially if they 
 consider how unlikely it is for the most ingenious man to be- 
 come suficiently acquainted with the 'name and diseases of the 
 horse in one year jo undertake the management of a regiment! 
 Look a;ound at these sagacious professors — look at the increas- 
 ing progress of Tameness and disease in the army, and then 
 tell me what is the cause? /answer, ignorance and A 
 
 WANT OF SYSTEM ! 
 
12 
 
 Mr, Goodwin is not to be told that " there is 
 nothing new in the plan recommended by Cap- 
 tain Blagrave" ; but that its absurdity led to the 
 system of shoeing now practised at tha Veteri- 
 nary College, he denies. It was your attach- 
 ment to your own fanciful theory, that led to the 
 practice, and that in defiance of the admoni- 
 tions )ou received — a practice concerning which 
 the less your acute advocate says, the better. 
 
 It strikes me, tSiat when 'your loving cousin 
 made the remark, that " there was nothing new in 
 Captain Blagrave's plan," he had not had not had 
 an opportunity of knowing. Captain Blagrave, 
 it is true, says that "he had tried it upon his own 
 and other horses for twenty years" ; but, had he 
 communicated the secret to him ? I think not : 
 nor, if I am well informed, to any one. Every 
 one may be trying to shoe like him, but until 
 he gives the promised explanation, I should sup- 
 pose, without the desired success. 
 
 Your learned advocate, I think, in page the 
 ninth of his liberal and elegant epistle, quotes 
 you his preceptor and relative. I agree very 
 cordially to the first part of his quotation; but 
 to the last, wherein it is stated " where the 
 frog has been long removed from pressure,* &c. 
 
 * Captain Blagrave proves that amongst the many evils in- 
 duced by bringing the frog in contact with the ground, an 
 abatement in speed is not the least* 
 
13 
 
 &c. the heel ought to be let down by degrees," I 
 dissent wholly. In short, the whole of the pa- 
 ragraph tends to prove that the nails of our fin- 
 gers and toes would be better if we let them 
 shoot into talons. Is future, sacred from the 
 knife be each horse's foot. Let firog and hoof 
 commingling lovingly together, jog on in that 
 happy state of equilibrium recommended by your 
 scientific relative, thrush, corns, inflammation 
 of the heel, perpetual lameness, and a few other 
 slight disasters, will be the only result — and all 
 the farriers shall say, amen ! — It is really curious 
 to see what a pah:ful struggle for notoriety this 
 scribbling moriai has made through every page 
 of his book---pianfuily pre-eminent must have 
 been that feeling that made him vain enough to 
 suppose his abuse would be noticed in the quar- 
 ter to which it was directed. But, soaiii 
 the wings of vanity, I make no doubt but is} his 
 dream he saw, Wimbledon Common covered with 
 cavalry, and himself, with uplifted hammer, 
 shoeing away before the eyes of admiring [loyal- 
 ty, and confuting the plan of this intruder, 
 Blagrave. Alas ! alas ! his hand is not {loomed 
 to be exalted in the eyes of Princes, neither shall 
 the thinness of his heels he praised by the torgue 
 of Royalty; mute continues the clinking of his 
 hammer, and his shoes shall sink into the obli- 
 vion of an old iron shop. Oh, that tire mighty 
 of the laud would grant thee a trial, thou quon- 
 
14 
 
 dam retailer of ribbands — even that exaltation 
 of thy hammer that thou hast requested : then 
 would the glory of thy abilities be manifested 
 like a red-hot shoe, yea Wight as the virtues of 
 thy own thin-heeled shoe. 
 
 But, to proceed: the advocates for Captain 
 Blagrave's mode of treating the foot of the horse 
 are convinced of its utility, from its being prac- 
 tised on their own cattle; but it is not in the 
 power of the god of eloquence himself to con- 
 vince even your most partial friend, and that 
 upon the most general and loose principles, that 
 yours has succeeded in any one instance. 
 
 And so, this vender of ribbands had a diploma 
 from the Veterinary College ! Now, really, a 
 diploma granted on the strength of one year's 
 study, and to a man whose youth had been spent 
 in handling the scissars and the yard-wand, puts 
 one in mind of the degrees formerly disposed of 
 by the elders of a certain celebrated northern 
 university, from whom interest or money might 
 proenre the highest scholastic honors without 
 considering who was dubbed doctor — 'till a wag 
 having actually succeeded in procuring the de- 
 gree of Master of Arts for his valet, put a stop 
 to the practice. I am far from imputing wilful 
 indifference either to those who granted his di- 
 ploma, or gave him a regiment of cavalry to su- 
 perintend, being well aware whose recommenda- 
 tion it was they trusted implicitly to. It was 
 
15 
 
 yours ; and thus your loving cousin stepped from 
 a counter into a curricle*. Whenever the con- 
 fidence reposed in high official characters is 
 abused, either through their own indolence or 
 the un worthiness of their understrappers, the 
 whole country suffers. — Alas ! that in speaking of 
 professors we do not always speak of learned men y 
 but only of those ivho should he learned ! 
 
 As a member of that community whose boun- 
 ty you are enjoying, I shall now assert my right 
 to ask you a few questions, which the public, 
 as well as your immediate employers, have an 
 imperious claim upon you to answer to their sa- 
 tisfaction. If those who conferred this bounty 
 upon you dozed under the soporific influence of 
 your plausible theories, that is no longer the 
 case. Open to conviction, and as they ought to 
 be, alive to the public interest, they behold the 
 mist dispersing, and nothing less than direct an- 
 swers will be satisfactory. A few flimsy lectures, 
 interlarded with high-sounding technical phrases, 
 while the practice is in such a deplorable state; 
 while lameness and disease with unarrested pro- 
 gress vitiate both the camp and the country, and 
 yearly annihilate thousands of the public money 
 
 * Since writing the above I have been informed it was a 
 Barouche; which, as soon as he became viiLiii%td , he.actuaw 
 ly sp-.it'd!!!— But, melancholy was the event, and dolorous 
 the fall of his pride! 
 
lfi 
 
 are very unsatisfactory, and the time is arrived 
 when truth must be elicited from you : when 
 practical improvement, whether officially or vn- 
 oriicialiv, springing to the light, must supersede 
 mere theory, however plausible and vauntingiy 
 exhibited on the dead subject. — I claim a privi- 
 lege to ask you — First, Whether there is My 
 practical system at all of the veterinary art taught 
 tt the College of which you are professor? 
 Second iy, Whether, if there be any system 
 taught, is there one, or how many, instances of 
 a pwp'i\ of yours succeeding in practice who has 
 
 well known that those w 'ho have succeeded, have 
 been those only, who were bold and ingenious 
 enough to abandon that system, and to form and 
 act upon one of their own ? Fourthly, Is it not 
 true that lame, ghmdered and mangy cattle 
 swarm both in the camp and the country, and 
 that you yourself are ashamed of having pro- 
 mulgated your visionary theories ? These ques-< 
 tions will be most easy for you to answer, if 
 jour fftttid feels its own ability and its own recti- 
 tude ; for next to being faultless, is the acknow- 
 ledgement of error; but you must use more con- 
 vincing language ikan pur wtrthtf relative- — 
 that it will be more gaiilcrnanly, I cannot 
 
 doubt. 
 
 I have the honor to be. Sir, 
 
 Your humble Ser.ant, 
 J Subscriber to the Oxford-Street JnstHrfiom 
 
 Ridden, Printer, Steel's Court* Lee's Mews, Grosveuor-Sq., 
 
Secoitd Edition, 
 
 LETTER, 
 
 ADDRESSED TO 
 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS 
 
 THE PRIWCE REGENT, 
 
 IN 
 
 VINDICATION 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SYSTEM OF SHOEING 
 
 THE 
 
 FOOT OF THE HORSE, 
 
 AS PRACTISED BY THE 
 
 VETERINARY COLLEGE, 
 
 IN REPLY TO AN ATTACK CONTAINED IN AN ADDRESS TO 
 
 UIV. BRITISH FUKLIC, RECOMMENDING A DIFFERENT 
 
 PLAN OF SHOEING, etc. BY CATPAIN ELAGRAVE. 
 
 WSTH REMARKS ON THE LATE SCfRRILOUS 
 
 "EPISTLE TO PROFESSOR COLEMAN, Esq." 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE PRICE, 
 
 h 
 Ordnance Veterinary Surgeon to the Modway District, and formerly 
 
 of the Twentieth Dr:i£Oons. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY J. MORTON, 272, STRAND. 
 And to be had of all Booksellers : 
 
 1812, 
 
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