It EM AllKS ON DRENCHES, & C. 555 
chronic chest affection, which might have had something to do 
with the affair. 
I am averse to cutting wounds in the skin when I can avoid it, 
although I have, since that period, inserted many hundreds of 
rowels and setons, with only one mishap, and that not fatal. 
I have often seen permanent distortions in the lips produced 
by rowels and issues in the cheeks, when the branches of the 
seventh nerve have been interfered with. 
I fear that “ my say” is so long that it will not gain admission ; 
but I shall, nevertheless, venture on a little more, for it is a long 
time since I wrote to you, and it will probably be a long time be- 
fore I do so again. 
I have not found the hydriodate of potash to answer my ex- 
pectation, but I shall now try it in the form recommended by 
Mr. Morton. I have frequently reduced very large splents, both 
on the inside and the outside of the fore legs, and arising from 
blows or kicks on the large metacarpal bone, by a leaden com- 
press covered with leather, and applied tightly by means of a linen 
roller, or a leathern boot, made to lace or buckle. 
Who in the profession can read without feelings of much gra- 
tification the debates of your excellent Society] Our thanks are 
particularly due to Mr. James Turner, for his work on Navicular 
Lameness and on Insidious Glanders. With regard to his deep 
firing, I go all the way with him; but I seldom get employed by 
a man in whose hands I dare to trust myself to go the whole 
hog, generally having to do by two or three firings what might 
be done at one, if done severely. A man must be well esta- 
blished before he attempts this decisive but apparently cruel 
operation. I have been accustomed — rightly or wrongly — to 
apply a very mild blister to the leg the night before I operated. 
It affords a better surface to work upon, and exposes the real state 
of the leg: but I have tired myself, and, I fear, your patience; 
and must defer to a future period some other remarks that 1 wish 
to make. 
ON THE SWALLOWING OF SPONGE BY A HORSE. 
Communicated by Mr. George Rickword, Retford . 
An extraordinary case has lately come under my observation 
of a horse swallowing a piece of new sponge, and which caused 
not the slightest inconvenience to him, although he did not pass 
it until nine days afterwards. The case is as follows : — 
