88 REMEDIES FOR SPAVIN. 



on many occasions, witnessed the happiest effects from confine- 

 ment of spavined horses in stalls, persevered in to a great length 

 of time; nor would 1, for my own part, in a case where rest, and 

 duration of rest, could not be obtained, counsel any veterinarian 

 to undertake the treatment of spavin. Even under all favourable 

 circumstances, he foreknows his liability to failure, and most as- 

 suredly it becomes a duty he owes himself, if not his patient, to 

 diminish that liability to the uttermost. When consulted, there- 

 fore, on the curability of spavin, let the practitioner take care to 

 bargain closely with his employer for sufficient time for repose for 

 his patient. 



Remedies for Spavin. 



As soon as it is ascertained that a horse's lameness proceeds from 

 the existence of spavin, every person of any experience in the 

 affairs of the stable will tell you, at once, that the remedy is blis- 

 tering or firing the hock. These, we have seen, constituted the 

 curative agents of the farriers before our time ; they are in no less 

 estimation by farriers and others, nay, by veterinarians too, of the 

 present day. Were I disposed to follow the current of opinion, 

 professional as well as unprofessional, I might, therefore, sum up 

 the treatment of spavin in two words, blister and fire, or fire and 

 blister. Not that it is my intention to speak disparagingly of 

 these two popular, potent, valuable remedies; only to inquire 

 whether they really possess in themselves value sufficient to en- 

 gross our attention to the exclusion of all others. 



With no disease has empiricism made itself more busy than 

 with spavin. Be the disease within or without the joint, by no- 

 body has it ever been regarded as constitutional. No veterinary 

 surgeon has once suspected spavin to be connected with any rheu- 

 matic or other disordered state of the constitution ; and on this ac- 

 count, on account of the undisturbed good health spavined horses 

 commonly enjoy, and the conclusion, therefore, that the disease 

 of the hock is purely local, as well as from the conviction of 

 the uncertainty or hopelessness of recovery through ordinary 

 remedies, have, it would seem, more experiments been made 



