OTHER REMEDIES FOR SPAVIN. 121 



and such a season. " The system of turning (the fired horse) out 

 in a week or ten days after firing or bUstering — the practice of 

 the old school — is, in my opinion, decidedly objectionable. A loose 

 box, together with the treatment beforementioned, until the in- 

 flammation attendant upon the operation has subsided, is to be 

 preferred ; for, should the animal be placed in a situation which 

 affords him an opportunity of taking violent exercise while the 

 legs are in an inflamed state, or before they have recovered their 

 wonted tone and strength, he is Hkely to suffer from, instead of 

 being benefitted by, the operation. I have seen many horses that 

 had been blistered and turned out during the summer months 

 taken up with their legs thicker than before turning out, which I 

 could attribute to nothing but their having been driven about by 

 their companions, tormented by the flies, and made to exert them- 

 selves when the ground was hard, and at a time when the legs 

 were not in a fit state to bear such exertion." 



Other Remedies for Spavin. 



It must not be supposed that, because of the paramount efficacy 

 of firing, we are to refuse the aid of other remedies of acknow- 

 ledged power in certain forms and stages of spavin. The pain 

 the animal is put to, and the length of time he is kept under treat- 

 ment, by the operation of firing, are sufficient reasons for us not to 

 desire to have recourse to it save in cases of absolute necessity, or 

 wherein there is not the same prospect of affording relief by less 

 severe remedies. The case of spavin I have all along regarded 

 as the one in which we are especially called on to " give the fire" 

 is that which I have designated articular spavin, from its essen- 

 tially consisting in caries of the articular cartilages. The perios- 

 teal spavin — that external to the joint, and consisting in exostosis 

 alone — being, as we have seen, of itself, a totally different dis- 

 ease, will yield to comparatively mild remedies. The confounding 

 of the one disease with the other, or rather of the two together, it 

 is which has given rise to such strange discrepancy of opinion con- 

 cerning remedies for spavin ; one person contending that spavin 

 is a disease easily and always relievable by comparatively mild 



VOL. IV. R 



