118 
THE COMPARATIVE EFFECT OF THE 
I now come to a case—that of the Surrey huntsman^s horse, 
related by Mr. Thomas Turner—which I read with mingled feel¬ 
ings of pleasure and pain. Pleasure, at seeing the triumph of 
science and art over great physical difficulties ; pain at the neces¬ 
sary infliction of much torture on a good and noble animal;—and 
pleasure, again, at the humane interference of the gallant horse¬ 
man and excellent sportsman who so feelingly interceded to spare 
the sufferings of a favourite horse. Nevertheless, although hu¬ 
manity should be the badge of every department under the guid¬ 
ance of man, and although, as Montaigne so elegantly says, 
“ There is a certain general claim of kindness and benevolence 
which every creature has a right to from man,” still' it will not 
do for the surgeon, veterinary or human, to calculate too nicely 
the amount of suffering he may inflict in his efforts to effect a 
radical cure. Increase our sensibilities,” says another forcible 
writer, ** and who could live ? they are limited in mercy and 
justice.” Increase them, say I, and where should we find a man 
to amputate a leg, or cut a fellow-being for the stone ? And yet 
it may be difficult to determine how far we are justified in ob¬ 
taining a few years’ services of an animal at the expense of the 
pain and sufferance the horse in question must have been subject 
to: for it horrifies one to read a detail of the operation (nine 
months’ of suffering calculated upon, reduced unexpectedly to 
seven ; the state of the limb, compared to furrows in a ploughed 
field, dilated as suppuration advanced, and by no means pleasing 
to the eye), and still more to recollect that he was a second time 
exposed to it. 
Notwithstanding the pain the recital of this case must give to 
the common reader, totally indifferent to the subject matter in 
dispute, it affords an indisputable, an incontrovertible proof of 
the curative power of deep cautery lesions, in cases of severe 
injury ; and more than this, it gives rise to a question, the answer 
to which must go a great way towards deciding the relative value 
of these instruments of cure, or the modi ope?'andi of them. 
Here were two cases of what are called broken down legs,” 
in nearly the literal sense of those words, for the toe inclined 
upwards, and the tuft of hair (of the fetlock) almost touched 
the ground.” The question, then, arises —would the use of setons 
have cured either or both of these legs ? And why, may I ven- 
endeavours to recover its scattered imag’es and restore them to the same 
beauteous order in which they are wont to appear, in the like manner, 
when the natural course of the animal economy is interrupted and disturbed 
by disease, the powers of the constitution are continually endeavouring to 
restore its organs to the perfect use of their functions, and to recover its 
usual vigour and serenity.” 
