REMEDIES FOR SPAVIN. 93 



minor causes — of the failure of periosteotomy in pure exostosis. 

 To the articular disease of spavin it is, of course, altogether 

 inapplicable. 



Were spavin nought but exostosis, there would be nothing in 

 the way of the horse's restoration to soundness; the inflammation 

 and pain attendant for a longer or shorter time on the callous or 

 osseous tumour being relievable in a variety of ways, though by 

 some more promptly and effectually than by others ; whence have 

 arisen the number and diversity of remedies proposed or practised 

 at one time or other for spavin. The disease within the joint, not 

 being known, was left out of the account of treatment. Defective 

 pathology has led to insufficient or erroneous therapeutics; and, 

 strange to add, even now that the former is amended, the latter 

 still remains unimproved. 



Counter- IRRITATION will be found to be the leading prin- 

 ciple on which the treatment of spavin has hitherto been con- 

 ducted, and it is a principle in entire accordance with the new 

 lights thrown upon the pathology of the disease, and one on which 

 we are still mainly if not exclusively acting in our therapeutics : at 

 the same time we have a right — nay, it is our bounden duty — to 

 inquire whether or not counter-irritation includes every therapeutic 

 agent of use to us in our attempts to remove or relieve the lame- 

 ness arising from spavin. We must bear in mind that spavin, 

 which has hitherto been treated as consisting simply in exostosis, 

 has to be regarded by us as a disease of the synovial membrane 

 and articular cartilages, and, further, that it is to the breeding 

 rather than to the development of the disease that our efforts must 

 be directed, if we would hope for a favourable result. I hesitate 

 not to assert that, under delusion of external appearances, 



Great error has been committed in the ordinary modes 

 of treating spavin ; and to add, that it is high time this error, so 

 serious to our patients and discreditable to ourselves, should be 

 corrected. The disease presented to the mind of the veterinary 

 practitioner of the present day for treatment is not the disease 

 which the farrier of former time had in view : they both go by 

 the appellation of '' spavin," it is true ; and to the simple circum- 

 stance of the name remaining unaltered, it would appear, is in a 



