68 PROFESSOR SEWELL’S INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
Such ointment as the farriers of olden days were in the habit of 
using, such as contains bi-chloride of mercury and Venice turpen- 
tine ; ingredients which, while they add causticity and stimulancy 
to vesication, tend materially to protract the operation of the blister. 
And as soon as one blister has worked off, if time can be spared 
for it, I would recommend a second to be applied, this being the 
only plan of insuring any thing like success from vesicatories. 
It was a common practice at one time, and continues to be with 
some even at the present day, to apply a blister after firing for 
spavin. For this, however, providing the firing has been performed 
with the requisite severity, there cannot be the smallest necessity. 
Ointments of Antimony, Mercury, and Iodine. 
These are hardly to be named as remedies for spavin. I have, 
it is true, now and then employed antimony ointment — composed 
of the potassio-tartrate of antimony and lard — with some slight 
advantage; but this has rarely proved lasting. As for mercurial 
ointment, of itself it may be set down as all but inert and quite 
useless, though, in combination with iodine, of late a good deal has 
been said in its favour. My own experience is yet too limited to 
enable me to say any thing decisive about the efficacy of such a 
combination in spavin ; though, from all that I pretend to know 
and have heard, I should say that absorption or removal of the 
exostosis was the utmost we ought to expect from it, and that 
therefore its employment promised no benefit save in periosteal 
spavin attended with enlargement. 
PROFESSOR SEWELL’S INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
Commencing the Session at the Royal Veterinary College 
for 1846-7. 
[From the “ Veterinary Record.”] 
The Professor having expressed gratification at seeing so many 
friends around him, proceeded to remark on the alteration made in 
the period for commencing the lectures, which, he believed, would 
prove beneficial by allowing a longer time to students for dissec- 
tion, and also enabling them during the summer months to be 
practically engaged in the acquirement of professional knowledge 
with their preceptors. It was a source of satisfaction to him to 
know that within the walls of the College were now taught all the 
divisions of study necessary to the perfecting of the education of 
