104 THE STUD. 



leg, that the excrescence was seated precisely on 

 the cannon bone, about midway, and neither 

 pressed on the sinew, which, though much talked 

 about, it seldom or ever does, or on the smaller 

 bones of the leg ; this satisfied me they were not 

 inconvenienced by the splint. I found the leg in 

 its iaimediate neighbourhood hot as fire, and the 

 coverino^ skins tense as a drum-head; it then struck 

 me, that this tightening or distention produced 

 the hurt and lameness. The enlars^ement beino; 

 situated on the shank-bone only, I concluded I 

 could do no great injury there, so I passed a pen- 

 knife straight along the splint, from its commence- 

 ment to its termination, quite through the skins ; 

 kept cold fomentations to the part, gave my pa- 

 tient a dose of physic, and in a fortnight he 

 was oroinoj with hounds sound. I afterwards did 

 the same thing to several horses belonging to ac- 

 quaintances with the same results ; it left certainly 

 a lasting blemish, but not of any great extent. 



The same thing has been often done since, and 

 probably long before, by many professional men, 

 and not of course being done in so rude a manner, 

 but artistically, doubtless the Ijlemish left is far 

 less when performed by them ; but it so happens 

 that I have never, to my knowledge, seen a horse 

 thus properly operated on. 



The reader must not, however, infer from what 

 I have stated, that splints are always of so little 



