Tuesday 15 March 2011

Smoking and shoeing

Here is a fascinating link - there is an exhibition running of old cigarette company ads, and of course some of the most bizarre and outrageous (to modern eyes) are the ones where health professionals - doctors and dentists - are recommending that their patients smoke - and even which brands they should smoke!

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/10/06/business/media/20081006_CigaretteAd_Slideshow_ready_9.html

Of course, a few decades later there was ample evidence linking smoking with damage to health and now no doctor would even think of promoting smoking, and millions are spent encouraging people to give up.

So here's a question...do you think vets will still be recommending shoeing to the same extent in 20 or 30 years?

I don't for a minute think that shoeing, done well, causes the same level of harm as smoking, but equally I'm not convinced that putting  - say - a bar shoe on a horse with a caudal hoof problem is a genuinely effective cure.   Place your sweepstake now ;-)

1 comment:

Dom said...

I HOPE not. I hope there's more information out there in a few years about the benefit of going bare, and about how the foot functions.