OTHER REMEDIES FOR SPAVIN. 125 



passed, taking a similar course, on the outer side of the hock ; and 

 this constitutes my ordinary practice. For the first three or four 

 days after it is passed, the seton should not be moved — not drawn 

 up and down, indeed, until such time as sufficient inflammation is 

 aroused in the parts contiguous to it, the object being to promote 

 all the counter-irritation and counter-issue possible. And until the 

 desired inflammation and swelling be manifested — the better still 

 if it pervade the limb — the patient should be kept standing up in 

 his stall ; afterwards, a loose box is the preferable situation for 

 him. When we find we have succeeded in eliciting a sufficient 

 issue of laudable pus, we must take care that the seton be moved 

 sufficiently often to prevent the lodgment of the matter, and the 

 consequent formation of small abscesses or pouches underneath the 

 skin; since the effect of such detention will be, ulceration of some 

 part of the canal of the seton, and consequent premature casting off" 

 or liberation of the tape. In fact, this is one of Nature's methods 

 of getting rid of the offensive and irritating tape or thread, or what- 

 ever else the seton may consist of; the other being, ulceration 

 gradually going on in either aperture of the seton, and especially in 

 the upper one, at the part over which the knotted end of the tape 

 usually depends : it being curious enough to observe how ulceration 

 progresses at the place from the pressure of the tape, while granu- 

 lation keeps repairing the aperture above the tape ; until at length 

 the seton, growing gradually shorter and shorter in its canal, is 

 completely cast off" by unassisted natural procedure. 



I have limited my recommendation of seton to the case of ex- 

 ternal or periosteal spavin. There is one stage, however, of 

 articular spavin in which the seton not infrequently proves of 

 service, and of service even after firing appears to have failed. The 

 patient, we will say, has been properly fired, has had the requisite 

 period of repose or turning out, his fired parts have healed and 

 cicatrized, and yet he proves, shortly after return to work, if not 

 before, " as lame as ever." Firing the bald blemished parts again 

 is out of the question. What then is to be done 1 I say, under 

 such circumstances, I have known the introduction of a seton 

 followed, after some three or four weeks of issue — for time must 

 be allowed — by considerable benefit, if not by soundness; and, what 



