OTHER REMEDIES FOR SPAVIN. 
66 
expiration of two months from the commencement of their treat- 
ment, the setoned subject was cast and sold on account of “ in- 
curable lameness,” he having experienced but little relief ; whereas 
the fired horse returned to his stable “ sound,” to resume his duty. 
I am quite aware that an experiment of this description is open to 
objection, first, from the difficulty, next to impossibility, of pro- 
curing two exactly similar cases of disease* ; and, secondly, from 
their being insulated cases ; though this latter objection falls to the 
ground when it comes to be supported by that observation and ex- 
periment on an extended scale which decides the question of 
efficacy in chronic or confirmed cases of spavin by a great majority 
in favour of the firing-iron. 
I shall now relate a case which would seem to prove the supe- 
riority of the seton over the cautery ; though, for my own part, I 
would not assert that the failure of the latter was not ascribable to 
lack of time of repose, or of absence from work, being afforded. 
No. 21 horse, belonging to H troop, was admitted into the infirmary 
June 1835, on account of relapsed lameness from palpable spavin. 
Inungation of the tumour with ung. ant. potassio-tart. having been 
employed without benefit, the month following the hock was fired 
deeply. The operation was performed on the 23d of July, from 
which period until the 26th of September the patient was kept in 
a box. Still he went lame ; and, lame as he was, was sent to his 
own stable to take walking exercise in hand, it being thought that, 
after so much rest, motion might benefit him. On the 12th of No- 
vember, he having done nothing in the interval but take, daily, his 
prescribed walking exercise, he returned into the infirmary for 
treatment lamer even than he had been before. A blister was ap- 
plied upon his hock, on the outer side of it ; but that did no good. 
December the 10th two setons were passed, one along the inner side 
immediately upon the spavin enlargement; the other along the outer 
side of the hock, the length of each being four inches. The setons 
continued discharging for three weeks, and then, on account of 
efflorescences of granulations sprouting up around their apertures, 
were taken out. It might, also, be as well to state, that during 
the first fortnight they were in they excited and kept up a more 
than ordinary irritation and inflammation ; producing, indeed, so 
much general tumefaction of limb, that it was deemed advisable, 
in order to restrain it, to give cathartic medicine, foment, &c. The 
week after the final extraction of the setons I had my patient 
trotted out, and could not, to my agreeable surprise, perceive any 
lameness. 
Seemingly contradictory as these cases are, according to my man- 
* It might be urged that it was impossible to say with precision what was 
the state of the hock joints. 
