98 
NEW MODE OF FIRING. 
analogy between it and M. Eichbaum’s plan. It consists in 
washing the affected feet six times daily in lye saturated with 
wood ashes, and afterwards dressing them with a concentrated 
solution of chloride of lime, made by pouring two quarts of 
hot water upon a pound of lime. Considering the disease to 
be local, M. Kirchner makes use of no internal treatment. — 
Recueil de Med. Vet. du Sept. 1852. 
A NEW METHOD OF FIRING, IN WHICH THE STROKES 
ARE SHORT AND INTERRUPTED OR ISOLATED. 
By M. L. Prange, Veterinarian at Paris. 
“ It is impossible in human affairs to reckon on perfection 
being constant. The most approved methods and simplest 
modes of procedure in surgery become inapplicable under a 
variety of circumstances, which makes it extremely difficult 
to meet with a principle in practical surgery susceptible of 
extended generalisation. Of this we are about to give an 
example, and afterwards to propose a new method of applying 
heat through the aid of the actual cautery. Veterinary 
surgery has studied the firing iron with undivided attention ; 
and notwithstanding we find in the study of it, and in trials 
with it, abundance and variety of detail, and a wide field of 
judicious practice, still are left behind mines of information 
which have escaped our research. The Arabians, great 
advocates for the employment of fire in human medicine, 
have written some excellent encomia on actual cauterisation. 
Since this, Albucasis, and, later still, our great physician 
Severin Pinaud, have brought to perfection this department 
of surgery; notwithstanding all which, we at the present 
day behold the firing now r confined to animals alone, upon 
whom have been inflicted by it some frightful blemishes, and 
who, if they could speak, would exclaim, — ‘Let us alone, — 
the remedy is worse than the disease.* 
“ M. Prange has thought that the blemishes and sores, and 
other ill consequences too apt to arise from firing when 
severe, may be avoided by giving to the application of the 
iron some other graphic disposition. By interrupting the 
lines we draw, and by spacing them, we allow T the skin to 
retain part of its elasticity; in which case, should much 
sw-elling ensue, it might stretch and expand ; and then, when 
the swelling came to subside, the chasms made by the iron 
