SURGICAL OPERATIONS. 263 
favorite agent to check granulations, when they were too luxuriant. 
In short, there was no folly which a hot iron did not cover. It 
has now, happily, fallen into disuse. Most modern practitioners 
will now confess that their chief reason for exercising the iron ia 
to satisfy the proprietor, not to benefit the animal. After such 
an acknowledgment, who would submit to have his patient ser- 
vant’s skin scored and burnt with red-hot metal? 
The mode of cauterization differs according to circumstances. 
As a general rule, it ought, of course, to be applied in the direc- 
tion of the hair, by which the blemish is lessened ; but this rule 
can not be arbitrarily followed, although it ought to do away with 
all the false pride of displaying the taste in the figures scored upon 
a prostrate beast. The Veterinary College recommends that the 
linbs be always fired in perpendicular lines; others advocate all! 
mauner of fanciful marks. Some cast the horse; many surgeons 
perform standing. The irons used are of various shapes and di- 
mensions. Some recommend the firing, of all things, to be very 
light; others persist there is no virtue in hot‘iron unless it burne 
very deep. The operation consists in having irons of some sub- 
stance made red-hot, and then drawing them mechanically along, 
or twisting them about upon the skin. The figures are various; 
so is the depth of the incision. Both must be decided by the taste, 
judgment, or heartlessness of the operator. 
BuisTERING. 
This is an operation of very great utility, and is, perhaps, com~ 
pared with its benefits and importance, the safest that is performed. 
When a vesicatory becomes absorbed through the pores of the 
skin, it inflames the sensible cutis underneath, the consequence of 
which is, an infusion of serum through the part, which, in the 
human subject, elevates the cuticle into a bladder equal to ‘he sure 
face inflamed, but in the horse, from the greater tenacity of the 
cuticular connections, it becomes separated in the form o' small 
distinct vesicles only. If the irritating cause be quickly re .oved, 
the serum may be reabsorbed, and the surface restored by a slight 
effort of adhesive inflammation. If the irritant act in a stil} 
minor degree, it simply irritates the vessels of the cutis to an in- 
filtration of fluid through the sensible pores, but produces no 
desquamation of cuticle. Such has been called a sweating blister. 
