EXUTORIES. 187 



first description of the seton and its effects was given by Markam, 

 in 1556. But even after that date we read of the use of irri- 

 tating soft pencils, or candles composed of various ointments, 

 melted or mixed together, and introduced under the skin, incised 

 for the purpose, and more or less massed or bruised with some 

 hard substance. But the accidents which were apt to accompany 

 some of these energetic forms of treatment were of so serious 

 a nature that they gradually fell into disuse, and to-day this class 

 of principal exutories includes only the seton in its various forms, 

 the trochiscus and the vesicating preparations. 



Exutories act as counter irritants, resolvents, and alteratives. 

 The irritation which follows their contact with the living tissues 

 excites the purulent secretions, and the activity in the process of 

 interstitial resorption, which they stimulate, render their adoption 

 and frequent use a source of much benefit and great satisfaction 

 to the veterinary practitioner. The list of ailments in which 

 their value is manifest and unquestioned is a long one, and com- 

 prehends affections of the chest, catarrhal inflammation of the 

 air passages, and affections of the abdominal organs, with those 

 of the eye, and in dogs of the ear. They stimulate the resolution 

 of local afiections having a tendency to chronicity, for example, 

 oedematous swellings of the extremities, and they are frequently 

 indicated in diseases of the locomotory apparatus, in certain af- 

 fections of joints, and in rheumatic lameness, and also to excite 

 the resolution of soft tumors, especially those of the synovial 

 structures. The most ehgible of the forms in which exutories 

 are prepared, especially when they are designed to act as a means 

 of drainage, or to prevent the accumulation of pus in anfractuous 

 cavities, is the seton. It is recommended in nervous affections 

 and in paralysis, and also for the relief of atrophied regions, and, 

 according to Bouley, it may often become a means of diagnosis, 

 as well as of prognosis. 



In an acute disease having a tendency towards recovery, a 

 seton will have an ii'ritating effect, and give rise to a phlegmous 

 swelling about its tract, while in the same disease, if the tendency 

 be toward a fatal termination, the artificial suppuration which it 

 causes will soon cease to flow, and the tract will remain compara- 

 tively dry. 



There have been those who have made the seton a prophylac- 

 tic agent, or insurance institution, to be made use of at certain 



