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between each, may be made obliquely from the fetlock upwards. Each 

 stroke made with a stripe-iron should be gone over at least twenty times, the 

 metal being heated to redness, and slightly cooled. This operation 

 necessarily takes time and care. On no account should the skin be cut 

 through. After firing, the animal's head must be tied up for a week, and in 

 many instances it is advisable to blister the cauterised limb with equal parts 

 of ointment of cantharides and of biniodide of mercur3\ The animal should 

 be fed on mashes during this time, and should be led out daily for five or ten 

 minutes. If a very severe action is not desired, we may fill up the burnt 

 lines with Stockholm tar, instead of blistering. At the expiration of a 

 fortnight, the incisions should be again filled with tar or grease. We have 

 no hesitation in stating, that judicious firing is frequently the most efficient 

 treatment for sprained tendons and sesamoid ligaments, curbs, windgalls, 

 bog-spavins, and thoroughpins. 



In firing the hock, it is necessary to exercise care to avoid the vein on 

 the inside. IMoreover, in firing in this part, the iron must not be too hot in 

 operating on a thoroughbred horse, as otherwise it will penetrate through the 

 skin, and cause an ugly gap. Oblique stripe firing is always attended with 

 better results, than when this operation is performed in vertical lines. We 

 may conclude our remarks on firing, by stating, that having a very large 

 amount to do, we employ irons of our own patterns. The prick of the 

 prick-iron we use is not more than from a fifth to a quarter of an inch in 

 length, and our stripe-irons are not so bulky as those commonly in use. 



BLEEDING. 



We may now say a few words regarding the practice of bleeding. Although 

 scientific men are in the habit of inveighing, and with justice, against the 

 absurdities which fashion imposes on its votaries in the matter of dress and 

 various other customs, for instance, that most absurd custom of habitually 

 taking certain noxious drugs, such as chloral hydrate, opium, tobacco, and 

 large quantities of alcohol, still they themselves are not free from charges of 

 worshipping at the same shrine. There is, strange to say, such a thing as 

 fashion in medicine and surgery. At one time a particular drug comes into 

 fashion. It is the custom to prescribe it, and this may be sometimes done, 

 when it really is not needed. Bleeding, a useful practice extensively 

 employed in former days, and perhaps too much so, is now, on the other 

 hand, scarcely practised at all by some. It is most unfortunate that there 

 should be this tendency to indulge in the freaks of fashion. There is no 

 doubt that, just as in the past, some asthenic individuals, both men and 

 horses and other animals, have been simply killed by excessive or misapplied 

 bleeding ; so in the present, many cases of acute inflammation of sthenic 

 type in plethoric animals have been lost, simply through lack of that 

 abstraction of blood, which is so extremely useful. There are annually in a 

 large practice, many animals, horses, beasts, sheep, in which there would not 

 be the least chance of recovery, unless depletion of the excessive amount of 

 p 



