HISTORY
“The occupation could range from a short hair trim all the way through to complex operations”
How are horse shoes removed? Just like our fingernails, horse’s hooves are constantly growing, which means their shoes need to be removed and re-fitted regularly. To remove a shoe, the clenches in the hoof wall are straightened out with a buffer and hammer, before the whole shoe is levered off with pincers. If all this talk of burns, nails, and pincers has you wincing – don’t! Just like our fingernails, hooves don’t have nerve endings. So long as the nails are placed correctly, without touching fleshier parts of the foot, the horse feels nothing at all.
Horse shoeing Why do horses wear shoes and how are they fitted? Ever since horses were first domesticated thousands of years ago, horsemen realised the importance of protecting their animals’ feet. On hard or rocky terrain, shoes protected a horse’s hooves from cracking or wearing down faster than they could grow. In soft, wet terrain – like the farmlands of northern Europe – shoes stopped their hooves from becoming porous and unstable, as well as helping the horse gain a good footing. To prepare the foot, a farrier – an expert who shoes horses for a living – gives the horse a basic
manicure by levelling off the hoof with a rasp and trimming excess growth. Next, they take a shoe made steel or aluminium and heat it in a forge until it glows red-hot. The shoe is quickly placed against the hoof to makes an impression, which the farrier uses as a guide for reshaping the malleable metal with a hammer and anvil. The shoe is cooled in water and fixed to the hoof with nails, which are angled so they exit the outer wall of the hoof and can be bent down to form clenches. Finally, the edges are smoothed down with a rasp.
A farrier (a specialist in horse hoof care) using pliers to remove an old shoe from a horse’s hoof
Barber surgeons The role of a medieval practitioner
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The famous barber’s pole originates from the age of the barber surgeon with the red illustrating blood and white showing the bandages
improvisation. It was in this age that wine was first used as an antiseptic and opium as a crude form of anaesthetic. However, the lack of barber surgeon training meant that incorrect forms of treatment such as bloodletting and trepanning still existed. The role of a barber surgeon effectively ended in 1745 when a bill was passed to separate the two roles. Haircuts were now given without the patient fearing an unexpected amputation. WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM
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If you asked for a short back and sides in the Middle Ages, you may get more than you bargained for. This was due to the birth of the ‘barber surgeon’ where barbers doubled up as doctors and dentists. The occupation could range from a short hair trim all the way through to complex operations. In this age, physicians were strictly employed in an academic role so barber surgeons were essentially the infantry of the doctoring profession, looking after soldiers in battlefield hospitals and serving the public. This system had pros and cons. On the plus side, the barbers learnt many new medical techniques through trial and error, and even