ON FIRING AND THE SUBSEQUENT TREATMENT. 21 
to listen to any arguments opposed to its use; and I believe 
there are very few experienced veterinarians who are not of the 
same opinion. 
A circumstance prompts me to offer to the notice of your readers 
a few observations on the subsequent treatment of firing, upon 
which the credit of the practitioner as much depends as upon the 
performance of the operation itself. Formerly, the after-treatment 
of firing, not only with those of the old school, but with the more 
enlightened practitioners, was a very simple affair; and so it con- 
tinues at the present time with many persons, indeed so much so 
as scarcely to be considered in the light of a remedial measure. 
A little common oil or lard being rubbed on the fired part, the 
horse is turned into the grass field, leaving it for nature to per- 
form the rest ; but from the annoyance of flies, &c. he is often 
induced to bite or excoriate his legs, and permanently blemish 
himself. Should not this take place, yet frequently, from the 
want of proper attention, the legs being from time to time plas- 
tered with mud, together with the discharge becoming dry and 
hard, we have pretty much the same thing. 
In the early part of my professional life, being in a sporting 
country, I was frequently called upon to perform this operation ; 
and, in accordance with the general custom, I paid very little at- 
tention to my patient subsequently, and often had great cause to 
be dissatisfied with the appearance of the animal afterwards, not- 
withstanding I had taken the greatest pains in the operation. 
It was not until I had experienced much annoyance from the 
blemished and unsightly condition of the legs that I begun to 
think seriously on the subject, and to see the necessity of paying 
more attention subsequent to the operation than I had hitherto 
been in the habit of doing. The loss of hair, and consequent 
blemish and disfigurement, which l had frequently met with in 
fired and blistered horses, I for some time attributed to the pre- 
sence of some corrosive ingredient in the blister, knowing it to be 
a common practice with many persons to blister very soon after 
the operation, and, with some, even at the time of operating: 
however, experience soon convinced me that I was not altogether 
right in my conjecture, finding that the same thing took place 
from firing without any subsequent blistering, and even from using 
a blister which I knew to be properly prepared. This I found 
to proceed from the discharge issuing from the cauterized or 
blistered surface becoming dry and hard, adhering so firmly to 
the hair that the confined matter or pus underneath produced, in 
many instances, deep ulceration, frightful sores, and consequent 
destruction of the roots of the hair; circumstances which induced 
