FISTULOUS WITHERS. 391 
means small. The man who hopes to eradicate this disease should never 
have recourse to them. 
Another process, formerly very popular, consisted in slicing the living 
flesh in a very coarse and vulgar manner; that, however, was merely 
preparatory. The chief dependence was placed in boiling liquor, which 
was inhumanly poured into the wounds. After such a method were all 
sinuous sores treated by an ignorant and uneducated quack, who espe- 
cially delighted in eradicating such forms of disease. The writer has 
heard terrible descriptions given of the agony produced, and equally 
revolting has been the picture of the filth employed by this unqualified 
horse doctor. While, however, the course which has been mentioned is 
reprobated, our heaviest condemnation should alight upon those persons 
who could so violate the sacredness of their trusts as to surrender any 
creature to the torments of so horrible a remedy. 
In poll evil, the only certainty reposes on the knife. When properly 
employed, the operation is brief; the temporary agony bears no propor- 
tion to the years of subsequent relief thereby secured. To be properly 
employed, however, it should be used as though the person invested with 
it was, for the time, divested of all feeling. He who accepts it must 
think only upon what he is about to perform, and must summon resolu- 
tion to do it quickly. In surgery, hesitation is positive cruelty; the 
knife, to be curative, should be gracefully moved through the living flesh. 
All notching and hacking are tortures, and worse than folly; the blade 
should sweep through the substance; and, to prevent the struggles of 
the quadruped from interfering with the intentions of the surgeon, all 
that will be necessary is for some person to sit upon the cheek of the 
prostrated animal. 
FISTULOUS WITHERS. 
This disease, in its chief characteristics, closely resembles poll evil. 
It, however, differs from that disorder in one fortunate particular; poll 
evil must come to maturity before its cure can be attempted with any 
hope of success. Injury to the withers is easiest eradicated when 
attacked upon its earliest appearance; both, however, in their worst 
periods, proceed from pus being confined, from it decomposing and its 
establishing numerous sinuses. When disease has reached this stage, 
he only certain cure is the free but skillful use of the knife. 
Fistulous withers, in the first instance, is an injury to one of the 
superficial bursee which nature has provided to facilitate the movement 
of the vertebral, points spinal under the skin. The hurt is occasioned 
by badly-made saddles, but more especially by the ladies’ saddles. 
Some fair equestrians delight to feel. their bodies lifted into the air, and 
