28 
ON BLOOD SPAVIN, SO TERMED. 
In England the feet of horses certainly suffer more than in this 
country; which I imagine proceeds, in a great measure, from the 
foul stables and litters on which the animal stands in England. 
What, still further induces this opinion is, that the horses in the 
country parts of England are not so liable to bad feet as those of 
London, where the stables and litters are more foul. 
[To be continued.] 
ON BLOOD SPAVIN, SO TERMED. 
By Mr. F. King, sen., F.N., Stanmore . 
Believing that the operation of tying the saphena in blood 
spavin is not generally practised, and though 1 am rather scepti- 
cal on points where auxiliary means are resorted to, yet 1 have 
found, or fancied that I have found, such beneficial results from 
it, that 1 could not help throwing together these few rambling 
lines. 
The authors which I remember to have, in days of yore, con- 
sulted on the subject, and among them were Soleysell, Gibson, 
Bracken, and John Lawrence — all talk of tying up the vein ; 
but they seem to me to write on the subject as if they had adopted 
the dicta of those who had preceded them, their descriptions of 
the complaint being rather confused; and they talk of tying the 
vein above and below the hock, and that a consequence of this 
would be, the vein (so inclosed by the ligature) sloughing 
away. All seem to consider it to be a disease of the vein. 
Mr. Blaine appears, I think, to take a much more correct view 
of it, by considering a distended bursa as the more immediate 
cause ; yet he recommends tying up the vein, opening the tumour, 
and evacuating the contents, and allowing the sac to slough 
away. 
When I was a very young man I have said, What can that 
superficial vein have to do with distention of the synovial capsule ? 
(which appears to me a tolerably correct definition of the com- 
plaint), and I consequently neglected the operation. In after 
years, on many occasions, finding the common treatment — blis- 
tering and firing — not succeed to my wish, I resorted to liga- 
tures ; and, in conjunction with superficial stimuli, I have been 
so pleased with the attending result, that they have continued to be 
a part of my treatment for the complaint for some years. 
I merely cut down on the vein from two to three inches above 
