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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 mercury. .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. Moreover, 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 ina 
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 
F 
