FIRING HORSES. 
557 
FIRING HORSES. 
IN REPLY TO MR. TURNER. 
As Mr. Turner has thought fit to make a present of his recent 
edifications in veterinary practice to the professors of human 
medicine, from a laudable desire that lie may one day see 
men’s legs and bodies scored with a red hot iron, the same as 
those of horses are so unsparingly by him at the present time, 
probably he looks for a reply rather from a surgical than a ve¬ 
terinary quarter. He cannot, however, in his own mind, look 
with much satisfaction on any such reply, because he is him¬ 
self too well aware how little the medical man knows of vete¬ 
rinary practice; and therefore I should imagine that it would 
turn out of more real service to him to have what those think 
of his mode of practice who are alone capable of setting a just 
value upon it. 
I conceive that Mr. T. w r as led to make the exclamation 
“ Monstrous presumption!” from an idea that it was arrogant 
in him, or any other individual, to pretend to teach the pro¬ 
fession any thing concerning an operation so long and so uni¬ 
versally practised as firing; and the more so, from the circum¬ 
stance of almost every practitioner having some peculiar 
notions in the performance of it : and it certainly is a very 
ticklish subject to meddle with, and one, once agitated, that is 
likely to employ many more pens than mine and Mr. Turner's. 
Though not an advocate for old crotchets myself, nor yet a 
superstitious adherence to “ established practices,” still, for all 
that, I always regard these old forms with a sort of respect, if 
not veneration: they were instituted by “ farriers,” it is true— 
at least, most of them were; but, for all that, they deserve at¬ 
tention ; and the more so, since many of them (of w hich firing 
is one) have become confirmed by veterinary surgeons. On 
this account, it is with extreme caution that I ever permit my¬ 
self to disregard or abolish any general practice; and since I 
do not suffer myself to do so, I am very unwilling, w ithout in¬ 
terfering, to stand by and see others doing it; This is the 
reason I am now going to make a few r observations in reply to 
those published by Mr. Turner, on the subject of “ firing'’ 
horses. 
I apprehend the object of Mr. Turner's “ Inquiry” to be 
twofold: to revive an operation which he states to be in pro¬ 
gress of “ abandonment;” and to introduce the practice of deep 
firing in place of the much more prevailing one of super¬ 
ficial firing. 
Mr. T.'s w r ords relative to the first of these objects are.— 
VOL. hi. 4 F 
