TREATMENT OF SPAVIN. 83 



often, in cases of confirmed or inveterate spavin, we had to lament 

 its inefficacy. 



Gibson's Account of the Treatment of Spavin is really so 

 admirable that I question whether a better stands on record : the 

 perusal of it makes one almost blush for shame, feeling, as we must 

 do, that it comprises nearly all we know, or at least practise, in 

 the matter, in these boasted days of discovery and improvement. 

 " The usual method," wrote Gibson, " of curing bone spavin is by 

 blisters and firing, without regard to the situation or cause from 

 whence it proceeds. If a fulness on the fore i:iart of the hock 

 comes from hard riding, or any other violence, threatening spavin, 

 coolers and repellents only are proper." — " Spavins that happen to 

 colts and young horses are generally external* and superficial, and 

 may be cured with milder ajpplications than what are commonly 

 made use of for their removal, and with less danger of breeding 

 callosities in the joints; for it is better to wear out these maladies 

 by degrees, than to strive to conquer them all at once." 



Gibson, with great good sense, objects to caustic blisters, which, 

 " for the most part, leave a continual baldness, and often a remaining 

 stiffness, which can never be removed," and recommends a vesicatory 

 of a milder description in combination with terebinthinate mercurial 

 ointment, which, to prove effectual, '' must be often repeated, and 

 so requires a good deal of time before the cure is complete and 

 perfect." When a horse goes lame some time before a spavin 

 shews itself, and at length a spavin is discovered " deeply situated 

 and extremely hard," having its situation '' among the sinuosities* 

 of the joint," the usual practice is " to fire immediately, and to use 

 the strongest caustic blisters, and sometimes to fire and lay the 

 blister immediately over the part." I would, however, " first of 

 all choose to try a more gentle method, because horses are often 

 worse after the use of forcible means to remove spavins than they 

 were before." — " And, therefore, if the owner can be persuaded to 

 allow a sufficient time, the best and safest way is to make trial of 

 some mild caustic or blister." — " However, some spavins lie so 

 deep, and run so far into the hollow of the joint*, that no applications 



* Such expressions as these are of a nature to induce one to believe Gib- 

 son had seen disease within as well as without the joint. 



