THE EFFICACY OF DEEP CAUTERY LESIONS. 
635 
gery, especially for the highly scientific and efficient manner in 
which the actual cautery is exercised both in London and the 
provinces. 
I perceive, by the last number of the VETERINARIAN, that this 
subject has already raised the manly voice and pen of that able 
provincial veterinarian, Mr. Tombs, which, I predict, will be echoed 
throughout the length and breadth of the land. Many general 
practitioners will feel nettled and mettled as well as myself. 
Numerous will be the queries and importunities to Mr. P. regard- 
ing his singular retrograding view of one of the most important 
divisions of veterinary surgery, at no period of its history more in 
request by the public than at the present moment. Among them 
I have a new problem in therapeutics for my old respected col- 
league to solve, and must premise by confessing that both my 
brother and self have, at length, become hoary practitioners in the 
art and mystery of deep-firing, in association with several others 
in various parts of the kingdom. In their names, as well as my 
own, I ask Mr. Percivall for his rationale of the following astound- 
ing fact, which is no less strange than true. Either of us shall 
have operated upon a properly-selected case of bone spavin, ac- 
companied with lameness. Having carried the cautery lesions to 
the requisite extent, both as to depth and length, regardless of 
blemish, immediately upon the removal of the hobbles the horse 
gets up and trots ofi' free from lameness, presenting almost a pa- 
rallel as regards the transition from lameness to soundness to the 
operation of unnerving for navicular joint disease. 
The continued repose of the hock joint, in which Mr. P. has so 
much faith, could not have contributed any thing in effecting this 
salutary change. 
Having been honoured, in the course of the last ten years, by 
numerous letters addressed to us from country practitioners, lau- 
datory of the deep cautery lesions, besides two or three which 
were addressed publicly and in due order have appeared in print, 
I feel no hesitation in making the following extracts from my own 
writing, published in The VETERINARIAN about sixteen years ago : — 
“ Viewing the other method (the superficial), my practice in 
firing of horses has convinced me, that the success of the opera- 
tion, if performed for the removal of lameness , where the ordinary 
means have failed, whether situate in a joint or a sinew, depends 
solely on making each separate line or incision, from end to end, 
completely through the skin or common integuments, cutis as well 
as cuticle, and boldly exposing the cellular tissue, forming the im- 
mediate covering of ligaments, tendons, periosteum, &c. ; with all 
due caution, of course, not to pass the instrument so near as to 
wound or sear these important structures.” This applies to spa- 
vins, ringbones, &c. 
