OTHER REMEDIES FOR SPAVIN. 123 



uncombined articular spavin ever exists. My opinion, as before 

 expressed, is, that the disease outside gives rise to the disease 

 inside the hock joint; — that the two have a pathological con- 

 nexion, and, wherever the latter is present, a simultaneous exist- 

 ence. Chronic or inveterate lameness — lameness that has existed 

 for a length of time, the horse having the while been kept at work; 

 relapse upon relapse of lameness, and the patient aged ; are all 

 circumstances favouring the presence of the compound spavin. 

 For this case, as we have seen, firing is the remedy ; and the 

 firing, to produce its utmost effect, must be, I again say, both 

 extensive and severe. In fact, the owner of such a horse, should 

 he expect a cure to be performed, must make up his mind to con- 

 sent to a course of treatment which cannot but necessarily occupy 

 some months. Should there lurk any doubt about the case, that 

 it calls for the adoption of such strong measures as these, or there 

 be any disinclination to adopt them, or should the case clearly be 

 one of periosteal or ligamentous disease, then we may turn our 

 attention to some less violent remedy, and none is more worthy of 

 our notice than 



Seton. 



It is hardly necessary for me to observe here, that, whatever 

 notion change of name may carry with it into some minds, a seton 

 is nothing more than a rowel thrown into an oblong or linear form, 

 and that the effect of either will be in the ratio of the extent of 

 superficies it occupies or passes over ; the one or the other being 

 ordinarily employed in practice according as the skin is loose or 

 tense over the part in a state of disease. In pulmonic affections, 

 for example, we insert rowels or plugs into the breast; but through 

 the sides, for the same complaint, we introduce setons : the skin 

 upon the latter being so tense as with difficulty to admit of being 

 rowelled. And for the same reason, in cases of spavin, wherein 

 we desire to employ counter-issue of this description, we prefer 

 seton to rowel. So much, however, has been said about the efiR- 

 cacy of seton in spavin — such extravagant sort of praise, by Pro- 

 fessor Sewell in particular, indulged in on the subject, carrying 



