THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 271 



water on the diseased joints. The horse, on being put to work, 

 showed little more than the usual stiffness consequent on anchy- 

 losis, — which had probably then taken place, — and he continued 

 to perform daily labor for the space of eleven years, and died at 

 the age of nineteen, of congestive pneumony. The important 

 features in the case are, that there was less of lameness, tumefac- 

 tion, and bony enlargement than we ever remember to have seen ; 

 and this favorable result was, no doubt, brought about by the rest 

 and cold water treatment. The owner of this horse was " dead 

 set " against firing and blistering, had no faith in the curability of 

 spavin, and still less in " meddlesome medication" as he termed it. 

 If the cure of spavin, then, consists — as we are told it does by 

 some of our employers — in merely freeing the horse from lame- 

 ness, so that the owner may get rid of lum without much loss, or 

 if the animal shall be restored to his former usefulness, yet still 

 having an enlarged hock (an eyesore) and a little stiffness of the 

 joint, — all this can easily be accomplished by promoting anchy- 

 losis.* We shall be told that these are no cures at all. We 

 have examined several of these wonderful cures wrought by the 

 firing iron, and find that they all amount to about the same thing. 

 For if any of our professional brethren ever cured a case of 

 anchylosis, which is often a concomitant of spavin, we should like 

 to know it. Sir A. Cooper has pronounced it positively incura- 

 ble. In fact, partial anchylosis is a desirable event in the treat- 

 ment of spavin, and one which we always endeavor to induce. 

 If a horse happens to have an enlargement on the inside of the 

 hock, and goes a little lame, which he is very apt to do under the 

 circumstances, it is set down as a spavin ; and the poor brute, if 

 he were put into the hands of a humane man, who would prob- 

 ably give him rest, and perhaps foment the limbs, would soon 

 recover from the imaginary spavin. But it often happens that, 

 with the very best intentions on the part of the owner, the patient 



* Anchylosis. This denotes an intimate union of two or more bones which, 

 were naturally connected by a movable kind of joint. All joints originally de- 

 signed for motion may become anchylosed ; that is, the heads of the bones 

 forming them may become so consolidated together that no degree of motion 

 whatever can take place. In such cases the interarticular cartilages are ab- 

 sorbed, or become ossified, (changed into bone.) 



