REMEDIES FOR SPAVIN. 117 



skin the sensation of being tightened or braced: relaxation of it 

 not again taking place until the solid effusion into the cells of the 

 subcutaneous reticular membrane becomes absorbed. 



The modus operandi of firing will comprise, not only the 

 effects produced upon the skin and subjacent tissues by the red 

 hot iron, but also the relief or aggravation accruing therefrom to 

 the disease on account of which the firing is employed, together 

 with an explanation of the mode or manner in which such relief 

 or aggravation is brought about. It would appear that the phy- 

 siological effects of firing must be, in their first impressions at 

 least, closely similar to those arising from the application of the 

 moxa to the human subject. The pain is '' drawn out" from the 

 distempered part by the suddenness and intensity of the shock 

 occasioned by the cauterization to the nervous tissue of the healthy 

 structures around and about it; the parts actually burnt or cau- 

 terized having their sensation at once destroyed by the searing of 

 the divided nervous filaments. However painful the operation 

 may be at the time of performance, it appears to leave no more 

 annoyance behind it than a general burning, benumbing sensation, 

 under which a horse will take to feeding with as eager an appetite 

 as though he had nothing amiss with him, and will, on occasions, 

 as Mr. Turner assures us, '' trot off sound" to his stable. And 

 this will endure until the period of inflammation arrives. Then 

 will this suspended or benumbed sensibility be followed by a 

 morbidly sensitive condition of parts, as well as by increased 

 vascularity. Come to dissect fired limbs, what do we find 1 

 Through the earlier stages, red vessels in unforeseen abundance, 

 and of larger size than ordinary, infiltration of the cellular tissue, 

 general thickening and augmentation of substance : through the 

 later stages, in consequence of a process of absorption, a disap- 

 pearance of all this increased deposit, proceeding to an abatement 

 or removal of parts in a state of enlargement from disease, and to 

 a shrunk, contracted, braced state of the parts in health ; and 

 withal, ending in permanently diminished sensibility, as well as 

 vascularity. In the course of these changes is brought about — 

 in a manner we are not permitted to learn — such a revolution in 

 the morbid orgasm of the fired part as, in the majority of cases, 



