606 MR. youatt’s veterinary lectures. 
function of nature. The horse-exhibitioners, having occasion for 
much shew at their amphitheatre courses, sought to bring on 
this high shew by puncturation. To them let the secret belong; 
it is barbarous and unseemly.” But enough of this foolery ! 
The Use of Setons .—We know nothing of the cause, and no¬ 
thing of the cure. An instance of cure stands not, I believe, in 
the English records of Hippopathology. Some of the French 
writers recommend the use of setons. A case is recorded by 
M. Rodet, jun. A cavalry horse long had string-halt: by and 
by, from being suffered to go frequently into a running stream 
in order to drink, and not being rubbed dry afterwards, cracks in 
the heels began to appear; they increased; the pasterns and the 
fetlock swelled considerably, and there was every character of 
chronic grease. M. Rodet very properly had recourse to the long- 
continued use of setons within the thighs : and he found, after a 
while, that not only was he conquering the grease, but that the 
stringhalt was gradually diminishing. The setons were con¬ 
tinued during three months, at the expiration of which time the 
horse became perfectly sound. If curative measures are adopted, 
I know not of any so likely to succeed as the long-continued ap¬ 
plication of a powerful counter-irritant, like a seton, in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the affected part. 
How far interfering with theValue of the Horse. —Now, gentle¬ 
men, comes an important question. What connexion is there 
between stringhalt and the supposed value, or deterioration of the 
horse ? Some very experienced practitioners have maintained 
that it is a pledge of more than usual muscular power. You and 
I have heard it asserted, and by those who know something 
about the matter, that there never was a horse with stringhalt 
that was incapable of doing the work usually required of him.’^ 
Most certainly we continually meet with horses having string- 
halt, that pleasantly discharge all ordinary, or even extra¬ 
ordinary services ; and it may with some plausibility be argued, 
that we require in a horse, not only perfection of the nerv¬ 
ous system, in order that there shall be a sufficient supply of 
that energy by which muscular action is excited, and also a 
powerful muscular system, that shall be able to accomplish what 
the will dictates, but a susceptibility in the one to be acted 
upon by the other. It is this susceptibility which as much 
as, or more than anything else, constitutes the difference between 
activity and dulness—in fact, between a good horse and a bad 
one: and although stringhalt is excess, or irregular distribution 
of nervous power, it at least shews the existence of that power, 
and the capability in the muscular system of being acted upon 
by it. 
