ACUTE CAUTERY AND SETON. 
121 
horses’legs. It is the counter-irritant carried to excess that does 
the business. As to the argument of the bandage produced by 
the lesions, I will not enter upon that again. 1 content myself 
with asserting, that ninety-nine hunting sportsmen in a hundred 
conceive that such is the result of the operation of firing, skilfully 
and effectually performed. 
The concluding paragraph of Mr. Spooner, on this part of his 
subject, is as creditable to his candour as to his judgment: ‘*The 
whole,” says he, resolves itself into a question of science and 
prudence ;—science, as to the kind of operation that is required 
in certain cases, and of prudence in directly and unyieldingly 
opposing the opinions of others.” “The art of setoning,” he 
adds, “ is in its infancy; like all others, it must stand the test of 
experience, before we can pronounce on its merits; but our judg¬ 
ment must not outrun our practice.” 
Mr. Cheetham’s observations on the hock joint are beyond my 
reach ; but I perfectly agree with him in the low estimation in 
which he holds blisters, when applied to severe injuries of horses’ 
legs, I confess my own experience of them has been any thing but 
satisfactory; indeed, I have seen much injury produced by their 
use. I cannot, however, pass over Mr. C.’s judicious advice to 
young practitioners, to make themselves masters of the operation 
of firing. Admitting the seton to be of equal value, it will 
be many years before sportsmen will believe it to be so, and the 
high estimation in which a skilful operator in this department 
of the veterinary art, the use of the cautery, is held by them, can 
only be known and appreciated by persons who, like myself, have 
lived nearly half a century among them. But the reluctance to quit 
the beaten track is not confined to sportsmen and other owners of 
horses. The bulk of mankind, in which persons of all professions 
are included, think themselves dispensed from imitating and 
following great models, although a propensity to be carried away 
with the lowest of bad ones is every day seen. 
Mr. Richmond vouches stoutly for the seton, and laments that 
his brethren of the profession had not, in this debate, advanced 
something more than they had done in favour of its curative 
cfiects. After alluding to the cures he had witnessed of dis¬ 
eases of the extremities by the seton, he concludes with giving 
it the preference in recent cases, and the cautery in chronic ones 
—an admission, by the by, that the latter is the most powerful 
agent of the two. Mr. Dawber seconds his approval of the new 
practice, and, when expressing his belief that its cfiects are per¬ 
manent, was backed by the President by an assurance that sucli 
is the case—aii.assertion that should not be lost sight of. 
['Po be continued.J 
s 
vor.. \i. 
