10 
LAMENESS IN HORSES. 
weeks “ the curbs had quite disappeared.” Mr. Wills thinks that 
this ointment possesses the additional virtue of promoting the 
growth of hair*. 
Iodine and common Mercurial Ointments, singly or in 
combination, are employed frequently by horse-dealers and grooms 
from an apprehension of, from the use of other and more efficient 
remedies, incurring blemish. Such applications, however, are of 
very little use when the object is the permanent removal of lame- 
ness ; the ailment being very apt to recur afterwards, supposing it 
gives way to their employment. 
Firing will certainly be deemed advisable in the case of a 
curbed horse failing after having been efficiently or repeatedly 
blistered ; indeed may, from the magnitude of the curb or the ex- 
traordinary lameness occasioned by it, or from the sickly contour of 
the hock, be recommendable in the first instance. The scores may 
be drawn in straight lines over the surface of the tumour; though, 
more commonly, the back of the hock is fired feather-fashion. 
Thus : The high-heeled shoe ought to be kept on during the 
operation of blistering or firing; indeed, the horse 
for some considerable time afterwards had better be 
worked in calkins, supposing his ordinary shoes not 
to be furnished with them ; or, if they have, then 
the calkins now used had better be made of a stronger 
and higher description. 
Failure of Cure, of established or permanent 
cure, attaches to every remedial measure employed 
for curb, though in very different ratio. After fomenta- 
tions and lotions, supposing soundness to be restored 
by their use, a curbed hock will hardly stand much 
exertion. Lengthened repose is the only chance that can be given 
it to right itself again, and grow strong enough to withstand trial. 
After a blister, curb and lameness will now and then return ; nay, 
on rare occasions, indeed, even after a second and a third blister. 
Most rarely does relapse happen after firing. I have had occasion 
to fire twice, but never thrice. Under ordinary form of curb blis- 
tering is all that is required to insure soundness ; and on that ac- 
count no horse, unless some unusual circumstances present them- 
selves, should in the first treatment be put to the pain of firing. 
But when other remedies have failed, there can remain no question 
of the necessity and superior efficacy of the iron. 
* See vols. xiii and xiv (for 1840 and 1841) of The Veterinarian. 
