602 
TREATMENT OF SPAVIN. 
“ Preparation for Firing,” as it is called, will be required 
in all cases where it is intended to apply the cautery deeply and 
extensively, and will be advisable even though so circumscribed 
be the fired surface as it is in the case of spavin. And the 
topical blood-letting and physic, &c., employed for the cure of 
recent spavin, though they fail to remove the lameness, pro- 
bably through the case being of that antecedent date that re- 
lief is hardly to be expected from them, will be well adapted to 
bring about this desirable condition of body. So far, therefore, 
from such antiphlogistic treatment being thrown away, and the 
time it has occupied being regarded as so much time and labour 
lost, it will turn out to be the best preparative, local as well as 
constitutional, we could have instituted for an operation so apt to 
create excessive inflammation and consequent constitutional dis- 
order, as firing ; while the fomentation “ softens” the skin and 
renders it more susceptible of the fire*, the lowering of the system 
prepares it to receive the shock apt to be occasioned thereby. 
Severely painful and irritating as Firing is known to 
be, it sounds any thing but agreeable, even to the ears of profes- 
sional men, to hear persons — sporting gentlemen and others — 
ordering that their horses be fired for this or that trifling defect, 
the nature of which they know little or nothing about, with as 
much sang froid as they issue an order for bridling and saddling 
their hacks or hunters. The phrase “ firing,” to them, seems to 
convey no consequences with it. Scoring a living horse’s limbs 
appears to them no more than a flea-bite. And yet, before now, 
have horses died in consequence of the pain and irritation occa- 
sioned by firing. Mr. Spoonert mentions the case of a horse that 
was destroyed from being fired : nay, horses have died from 
having their legs blistered even. An instance of this came under 
my own observation. 
A veterinary surgeon, a good practitioner, and a man of many 
years’ experience, killed a horse of his own in this way. It was 
a three-parts bred horse, and, no doubt, an irritable subject, and 
possibly not duly prepared, he being, rather in haste, required to 
be blistered or fired on account of staleness in his legs. Unfortu- 
nately, and certainly injudiciously, the four legs were simultane- 
ously blistered, with blistering ointment such as was at that day — 
the year 1821 — in common use, containing a small proportion of 
corrosive sublimate. The legs took to swelling more than they 
ordinarily do after the application of blisters, and yet not to a de- 
gree to create alarm. They, however, commenced discharging 
from their surfaces about the usual time, but rather prematurely 
* Solleysel’s View of Local Preparatives. 
t See Veterinarian for 1837, p. 147-8. 
