604 
TREATMENT OF SPAVIN. 
limbs simultaneously ; and, secondly, it shews us that, in horses 
known or suspected to have any disease of chest, firing and blis- 
tering are doubly hazardous operations. Firing or blistering a 
circumscribed surface, like the seat of spavin, it is true, is of no 
great moment ; it is when we come to fire — and deeply fire — the 
legs from fetlocks to knees or hocks, that evil consequences are to 
be dreaded in irritable constitutioned horses, or such as are unpre- 
pared to endure so great an amount of pain and irritation. 
The Ancientness of Firing is notorious. Solleysell tells 
us, Arabians, Turks, and Italians practised it, to strengthen their 
horses’ limbs. Gibson likewise informs us that the practice “ was 
first borrowed from the Arabians,” and that “ the Arabians fired 
their horses to strengthen their limbs*” 
VEGETIUS has a very interesting chapter “OF THE MANNER OF 
GIVING THE FIRE, AND THE CAUTERY t.” In it we learn, “ to 
promote the cure,” that “ authors have pitched upon a twofold 
remedy, viz. the lessening of the quantity of blood, and the burn- 
ing of the cautery , by which relaxed parts are strengthened and 
confirmed, the cautery being “ the very last thing to be done for 
performing the cure.” “ The burning constringes or binds fast the 
parts that are relaxed,” — “takes clean away cankered sores,” — 
“ recalls to their own natural state the parts of the body which 
from any cause whatsoever have been disordered, and put out of 
their natural state ;” — “ for when you have broken the skin with 
the red-hot iron, all the distempered matter is concocted and ma- 
turated, and, being dissolved by the benefit of the fire, runs out 
with the humour through the holes made by the cautery, and so 
the disorder is cured, and the pain removed.” “ But you must 
know that cauteries made of COPPER are more effectual to per- 
form a cure than those made of iron.” “ Sometimes (in firing) the 
points of the cautery are thrust into the part. Sometimes the 
red-hot iron is drawn along so as to form the similitude of a line 
or of little palm branches ; for in this the skill of the horse-doctor 
is commended, if he cures the animal with the cautery, so as not 
to deform it. But according to the place where the distemper 
lies, and to the state and condition of the skin, the cauteries are 
impressed with more force, or more lightly,” — “ * * the cure ought 
first to be attempted by letting blood, drenches, ointments, &c. ; 
and if they are of no benefit, last of all the fire is applied.” 
SOLLEYSELL J entertains strange notions about the influence of 
* See vol. i, edit. 2, of his “New Treatise on the Diseases of Horses,” 
p. 165. 
f Chap, xxviii, p. 57, of the English translation, by the author of Colu- 
mella Translated. London, 1748. 
Compleat Horseman, Hope’s Translation, edit, ii, pp. 283'6. 
