THE USE OF THE ACTUAL CAUTERY IN “ LAMPAS.” 905 
remedies are too severe, or the horse be worked too much 
during the progress of the disease, it will be very liable to 
extend to the upper surface of the cuneiform magnum ; in that 
case the lameness will be permanent. Firing does not produec 
the effect of a permanent bandage ; that theory is a mistake. 
I advise my young friends to be very careful in the se- 
lection of cases for inch or half inch deep firing, or they 
will probably get themselves into much discredit. I have 
known many cases of tetanus to supervene upon very deep 
firing, but have never known it to result from moderate 
firing. What a common remark it is to hear pronounced 
upon the appearance of very deep firing, “Who fired that 
horse ? '' “ Mr. So and So.” “ He should not fire a horse 
of mine,” — notwithstanding that the horse may have 
recovered from the lameness for which he was fired. Coarse 
skinned cart-horses will bear much deeper firing than any 
other class of horses. 
ON THE USE OF THE ACTUAL CAUTERY IN 
“ LAMP AS.” 
By Alfred Owles, M.R.C.Y.S., Aldershot. 
Until this day I did not think it would be necessary, in 
the interests of our equine patients, to protest against such 
severe treatment as is advocated in the Veterinarian for 
November, by Mr. Wilson, for what is vulgarly called 
“lampas;'' but as Mr. Wilson writes principally for the in- 
struction of the younger members of the profession, it may 
be as well that those gentlemen should consider the ra- 
tionale of the mode of treatment which he recommends for 
a condition of the palate of horses which is, I unhesitatingly 
assert, the natural state of that part in all young horses, i. e. 
the palate projecting below the incisor teeth, before per- 
forming the operation of cauterising the inside of the mouth 
of a horse, because he does not feed properly, and the palate 
(I find Mr. Wilson calls it the gum) projects below the 
teeth. 
This prominence of the palate will be found, in the ex- 
amination of 100 young horses' mouths, to be the normal 
state of the part. 
Mr. Wilson's ideas of the treatment are, as he admits, not 
based upon science, but upon practice. Will he permit me to 
recommend a careful study of the mouths of young horses in 
