ACTUAL CAUTERY AND SETON. 
177 
speak now of the majority of the evidence being against the use of 
the seton, taking the generality of diseases to which hard-working 
horses are liable ; although it is admitted, by all parties, that in 
particular ones it is the best. The chief object to be attained then 
appears to be, a knowledge of when the one and when the other is 
good; and as it is unanimously agreed that the seton is good 
in early stages of spavin, thorough-pin, joint capsular lameness, 
recent strains of shoulder, hip, elbow, or stifle ; in cases of poll- 
evil and fistulous withers, and in all injuries beyond the reach of 
manual detection, the voice of humanity calls for the adoption 
of it in all such cases, as the least painful remedy of the two : 
whilst in desperate leg cases, or “ sinew cases” as grooms call 
them, the iron must remain the. remedy, until it is proved 
that the seton will do as much. It will not do to talk of trying 
one remedy first, and, if that does not succeed, having recourse to 
the other; for the saving of time is material as regards so expen¬ 
sive an animal as the horse. That both operations are painful 
there cannot be a doubt; and as it is, to use your own words, *‘a 
noble animal we are torturing,” we should, when we can avail 
ourselves of it, adopt the one which is the least so, provided it 
be effectual. Nevertheless, it will not do, as the President him¬ 
self observes, to decry a practice merely because it gives pain; 
neither must the nerves of a veterinary surgeon be too sensitively 
constituted—nor, indeed, should any person whatever indulge in 
a morbid sensibility which might interfere with the common 
duties of life. It will not do to be siohing^ 
For the kid or lamb that pours its life 
Beneath the bloody knife.” 
The subject of this debate, however, cannot well be too often 
discussed ; and factSy which are the materials of science, should 
be produced, from the experience of the profession generally, in 
favour of or against the adoption of the new system. To mortify 
the pride of man philosophy leaves many things unexplained ; 
still be it remembered, that in her school the detection of a single 
error concerning one branch of natural science, justifies the sus¬ 
picion of its existence in another. 
P.S.—Although a little in advance of my present subject, 
I cannot lose sight of a letter in the Number for June last, bear¬ 
ing the signature of Mr. Pottie, of Yoker, near Glasgow, which 
is to be admired as much for the epigrammatic style in which it 
is written, as for the value of its practical remarks. Mr. Pottie 
upholds mein iny view of the difference in the practice of a West 
End Lo«r/ow and ^coiintri/ practitioner of the veterinary art. The 
vor.. XI. B b 
