422 
SPAVIN. 
for the cure of spavin than in the case of almost any other dis- 
ease. Some of these have been truly mechanical, rude, and even 
barbarous in their nature ; while others have been based upon sci- 
entific views, such as have been entertained by their projectors ; 
though, after all, as I have already more than once observed, are 
we at the present day found practising blistering and firing, the 
same as was practised a hundred years ago by our professional 
predecessors. 
The notions respecting the nature of spavin of the farriers of 
former days were precisely the same they are with the profession- 
ally unlearned of the present day : they find the horse lame in the 
hind limb, it is pretty evident his lameness proceeds from his hock, 
and it is manifest he has a bony tumour thereupon, and, therefore, 
the natural inference was — has been all along, indeed, until Mr. 
Goodwin demonstrated its fallacy — that the exostosis was the whole 
and sole cause of the lameness. Nothing, therefore, seemed required 
but to get rid of this tumour ; and the simplest and readiest way of 
accomplishing this, appeared at once to 
Saw or chisel or rasp off the exostosis. And, so far as 
the prompt removal of an osseous tumour goes, surgeons up to the 
present day have devised no simpler, safer, or more summary mode 
of proceeding than by operation. Many years ago, a person who 
had obtained some celebrity for curing spavined horses, came from 
one of our northern counties to London, and in consequence of re- 
presentations made by him to the Board of Ordnance had permis- 
sion granted him to make certain experiments at Woolwich on 
horses belonging to the Royal Artillery, to be selected, on account 
of having spavins, by my father. This man was dexterous enough 
in his handicraft. He cleverly dissected the skin off the exostosis, 
and afterwards, with a common iron chisel and wooden mallet, 
chiselled off the osseous tumour, and then brought the divided 
portions of skin together, and, if I remember aright, secured them 
by ligature. So far all appeared plausible enough. But the ope- 
rator had not calculated on or seemingly cared for the consequences 
of an operation so purely mechanical and rude. He had not fore- 
seen what was sure to follow, inflammation , and inflammation it 
might be, and in some of the cases proved, of that acute and de- 
structive character which would almost for certain leave the hock in 
a worse state than it was even in its purely spavined condition. 
Nay, in one or two instances the hock joint became opened from 
sloughing, consequent on the operation, thereby endangering not 
the limb only, but the life of the animal. The saw would have 
been a less offensive instrument for such an operation than the 
chisel ; indeed, with a saw such as is used for like purposes by 
surgeons, the removal of the tumour might have been effected with 
