OTHER REMEDIES FOR SPAVIN. 
63 
one of periosteal or ligamentous disease, then we may turn our 
attention to some less violent remedy, and none is more worthy of 
our notice than 
SETON. 
It is hardly necessary for me to observe here, that, whatever 
notion change of name may carry with it into some minds, a seton 
is nothing more than a rowel thrown into an oblong or linear form, 
and that the effect of either will be in the ratio of the extent of 
superficies it occupies or passes over ; the one or the other being 
ordinarily employed in practice according as the skin is loose or 
tense over the part in a state of disease. In pulmonic affections, 
for example, we insert rowels or plugs into the breast; but through 
the sides we introduce setons, the skin upon the latter being so 
tense as with difficulty to admit of being rowelled. And for the 
same reason, in cases of spavin, wherein we desire to employ 
counter-issue of this description, we prefer seton to rowel. So 
much, however, has been said about the efficacy of seton in spavin 
— such extravagant sort of praise, by Professor Sewell in par- 
ticular, indulged in on the subject, carrying its sanative power in 
such cases even beyond that of the actual cautery — that I verily 
believe some of the juniors and less experienced of our profession 
have felt disposed to attach a specific power to the seton as a re- 
medy. That setons are often found of great service in spavin, 
that in certain cases, and under particular circumstances, they 
prove relievable or even curative of spavin, I am, from my own 
practice, too well convinced to listen to any opinions to the con- 
trary ; but, that they possess any remedial power in confirmed or 
inveterate cases of spavin which will bear a comparison with 
that belonging to the firing-iron, is what no man who has had 
to treat many such cases, I should imagine, will subscribe to. 
Spavin, it must ever be borne in mind, essentially consists of two 
diseases ; and these diseases are so opposite in their nature, that to 
make a selection of any individual remedy, and say, it is equally 
applicable to both of them, in any state or stage they may happen 
to be, is downright quackery, and nothing better. 
For articular spavin , then — if our design be to work a cure that 
will prove serviceable and lasting — the actual cautery is, generally 
speaking, the preferable remedy. But for callous tumour or ex- 
ostosis, i. e. periosteal spavin, seton will often be found a very 
useful and effective counter-irritant. It must be remembered that 
spavin, whether it appear’ in one form or the other, is a disease 
that rarely manifests much acuteness, or indeed occasions much 
pain, unless in the latter and aggravated stages of the disease ; and 
on this account, seton from its action, though tardy, being unre- 
