FIRING FOR SPAVIN. 
665 
firing horses has convinced me that the success of the operation, 
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 the ligaments, tendons, periosteum, &c., with 
all due caution, of course, not to pass the instrument so near as to 
wound or scar these important structures.” In spavin, his prac- 
tice, as we have already seen, is to “ penetrate deeply the diseased 
part, actually neurotomizing it.” 
In a case of articular spavin I feel no hesitation whatever in 
saying, that the deeper or more severe the firing, the greater, in 
fact, the counter-irritation produced, the greater is likely to be the 
benefit accruing therefrom. Persons who have been fond of plug- 
ging the spavined hock with caustic, after making perforations in 
the exostosis with the actual cautery, have often succeeded in con- 
ferring signal and permanent relief; and I look upon this severe 
application of the firing-iron as much the same in regard to effect, 
there being risk in both cases of doing harm by inducing slough- 
ing beyond what was intended, and in neither case being there any 
absolute certainty , when the case is one of inveterate and esta- 
blished lameness, what will be the result. 
There is a notorious fact in regard to spavins in process of cure 
or under treatment, which must not be lost sight of ; and that is, 
that, notwithstanding a horse may experience a return of his lame- 
ness after his first treatment for spavin, or may not, perhaps, have 
been benefited by it, yet let him become sound from secondary or 
subsequent treatment, and the chances are he will continue sound 
at his work, and always afterwards remain so ; the explanation 
of which appears to be, that, so long as any periosteal or liga- 
mentary tissues clothing or connecting the cuneiform bones are 
left unconverted into osseous matter, inflammation will return, and 
lameness be the consequence; but, from the moment the cuneiform 
bones become consolidated from osseous deposition, or completely 
anchylosed, inflammatory action ceases in the diseased parts : the 
horse having the main articulation of the hock — that between the 
tibia and astragalus — left unimpaired, sufficient for the flexion 
and extension of the limb, efficient, indeed, for all the ordinary 
purposes of motion, and constituting of itself in action what com- 
monly passes for functional soundness. 
A few words in reply to Mr. Turner. 
Little did I suppose, when 1 heard it rumoured my old school- 
fellow was heating his irons, that I was to be his subject for firing. 
