289 
ON SETONS AND CAUTERIZATION. 
By Mr. M. Pottie, V. S. Yoker , near Glasgow. 
Mr. Editor, — I beg to tender you my humble thanks for your 
last report of the Association’s proceedings. I read it from be- 
ginning to end with deep interest, and without discovering that 
it was only an abstract , as you call it. But I am not altogether 
pleased with some of the speakers in the discussion, relating to 
the comparative value of setons and cauterization. 
It is long since I learned that firing had been banished from 
the College. I understood that the patients usually sent there 
had no need of the operation ; and that this was the only reason 
why it was not performed. I had heard, indeed, that setons 
could often do that which in other places is always done by the 
iron ; but I did not expect to hear Mr. Sewell say, that he would 
abandon the operation altogether; that he would, if he could, 
abolish it by act of Parliament ; and that “ in every case in 
which the cautery is used the seton would be equally or more 
effectual.” 
These, I have no doubt, are Mr. Sewell’s real sentiments. 
He thinks what he says. But it is evident that, in the debate, 
he stood almost alone. There is little wonder. No man who has 
been a few years in a stirring practice will ever abandon the iron 
for the seton. The mere student is easily dazzled with a new 
light. On the bare assertion of one man, and in opposition to 
the warning voice of many others, he is always ready to receive 
infallible novelties. 
But look to the testimony of Messrs. J. and T. Turner, Sib- 
bald, and other old practitioners, who have had extensive and 
varied practice. Either of the three I mention has daily oppor- 
tunities of seeing diseases that never enter the College walls. 
It is not to be supposed that these men are blind or stupid. If 
their testimony be worthless, where is better to be obtained? 
Not in the College. There the patients are all of one kind ; 
they are the property of wealthy individuals; the time required 
for treatment is not considered ; and the horses never have those 
lamenesses so common in coaching and other hard-working 
horses, who are often kept at work long after the lameness is 
evident. In such a practice much experience is not to be ob- 
tained. There are many common diseases, and many aggra- 
vated lamenesses, which the worthy President has never seen. 
The seton may serve him well enough ; but it will not serve us. 
I have had some experience of it myself — thanks to those who 
