THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XX, No. 230. FEBRUARY 1847. New Series, No. 62. 
OTHER REMEDIES FOR SPAVIN. 
By William Percivall, M.R.C.S. and V.S. 
[Continued from page 4.] 
IT must not be supposed that, because of the paramount efficacy 
of firing, we are to refuse the aid of other remedies of acknow- 
ledged power in certain forms and stages of spavin. The pain 
the animal is put to, and the length of time he is kept under treat- 
ment, by the operation of firing, are sufficient reasons for us not to 
desire to have recourse to it save in cases of absolute necessity, or 
wherein there is not the same prospect of affording relief by less 
severe remedies. The case of spavin I have all along regarded 
as the one in which we are especially called on to “ give the fire” 
is that which I have designated articular spavin , from its essen- 
tially consisting in caries of the articular cartilages. The perios- 
teal spavin — that external to the joint, and consisting in exostosis 
alone — being, as we have seen, of itself, a totally different dis- 
ease, will yield to comparatively mild remedies. The confounding 
of the one disease with the other, or rather of the two together, it 
is which has given rise to such strange discrepancy of opinion con- 
cerning remedies for spavin ; one person contending that spavin 
is a disease easily and always relievable by comparatively mild 
and painless remedies, while another maintains that firing, and 
firing alone, can avail. “ I can cure spavins with setons,” says 
one practitioner ; another, that “blisters” are the things ; a third, 
that “ periosteotomy” is all that is required. Paradoxical as it 
may appear to unprofessional people, it would not be difficult to 
shew, all were, in a measure, right, and yet that all were wrong ; 
the affirmations being made without any reference to the kind or 
nature of the disease represented by the name of spavin. The 
VOL. XX. K 
