116 REMEDIES FOR SPAVIN. 



abscesses ; and the result of this detention of pus in contact with 

 the cutis is, ulceration of the latter, destruction of its substance, 

 and with it of the bulbs or roots of the hair; and this ulcerative 

 process goes on — supposing the lodgment of pus be not disturbed 

 — to the entire destruction of the skin ; so that, in the end, the 

 eschars of cuticle forced off in patches by the accumulation and 

 weight of purulent matter upon them, the cutis presents a per- 

 fectly raw surface — a sheet of ulceration, in fact. This is succeeded 

 by a healing process, bringing us to the 



Tertiary or remote Effects of Firing. The ulcerative 

 action is no sooner arrested than a granulative process commences ; 

 and surprising it is to observe how rapidly the cherry-cheeked 

 granulations form and spread, filling up the chasms and holes 

 ulceration has made. As fast as the deficiences are made good, 

 the remnants of skin — if any be left — are stretched abroad to cover 

 them ; and soon, here and there, will little insulated patches of 

 hair be seen springing up on such parts as still retain the 

 pilous bulbs entire. Such places as the old skin, by a natural 

 process of stretching or spreading — " contracting," as it is called 

 — cannot be made to cover, must be furnished with new skin ; 

 and skin-making is not only a tardy but an expensive process 

 in the animal economy : at least, so we have a right to argue 

 it to be, from the space of time it occupies, and the evident 

 efforts of Nature to make the most of the old skin. What 

 with the stretching or spreading of the old, and the formation 

 of the new skin in barely sufficient breadth to meet the de- 

 mands of the case, the healed cicatrized part has a tense and com- 

 pact feel it did not possess before, and this apparent tightening of 

 the skin it is which, as it is said, " acts as a bandage" — bracing and 

 " strengthening" the fired part. I suspect, however, a good deal 

 of fallacy in this assumption of " bandage." The inflammation so 

 long pervading these parts has caused effusion of adhesive matter 

 into the subcutaneous cellular tissue, the result of which is agglu- 

 tination of the cutis vera to the parts underneath — the periosteum, 

 peri-chondrium, tendinous theccs, &c., which agglutinated condition 

 of parts it is that, in the absence of the cellular connexion through 

 which they obtained motion upon one another previously, gives the 



