19 
THE COMPARATIVE EFFECT OF THE ACTUAL 
CAUTERY AND THE SETON. 
Bi / Nimrod. 
[Continued from vol. x, p. 600 .] 
Of the degree of pain caused by the seton, I am little 
able to form a judgment; but when I have seen a country 
farrier inserting a rowel, made of something like what forms the 
sole of my shoe, and with a hole in the centre of it, under the 
skin of a horse, and afterwards seen the quantity of pus issuing 
through this hole,—not being ignorant, from self-experience 
of the suffering which the formation of pus creates,—I have 
endeavoured to calculate the amount of the animal’s suffering, 
and I confess I set it down at a good round sum. As to the 
directions for the operation, quoted by Mr. Mayer, jun. from 
Gervase Markham, they are enough to spoil a man’s stomach for 
his dinner to read them, much less to witness the flaying, the 
thrusting, the beating, the blowing, the moving, the stitching, 
and the drawing, which he describes. Nevertheless, as inflamma¬ 
tion ef one part is, we know, diminished by producing it in 
another, I by no means wish to undervalue even the old rowel 
as a counter-irritant, and for which purposes, as regards certain 
parts of the body of the horse, was it alone used. Its effect, as 
a promoter of absorption, was, 1 believe, never dreamt of, conse¬ 
quently it never travelled below the body. In fact, had my old 
acquaintance, William Griffiths, on whom I built my faith in 
my juvenile days, considering* him a sort of Doctor Bailey in 
the land, been asked to put a rowel—now called a seton—into 
the hock of a horse for a bone-spavin, he would have con¬ 
sidered the asker a madman. However, it is of little avail to 
recur to such an ignoramus, compared with the present state of 
the veterinary profession, as this person was; and although I 
am very well aware of the fact, that it is impossible to establish 
any general theory in medicine, or to be sure of curing disease 
on any general principles, still, the relative utility of those which 
are employed cannot be too minutely discussed, and therefore 
I shall trouble you with a few observations on the pros and cons 
of your correspondents, as regard the comparative effects of the 
actual cautery and the seton. I am compelled to adopt this plan, 
from my inability to say much of the latter from my own per¬ 
sonal experience. I used it in both cheeks of a big grey horse, 
which went blind when on m}^ Yorkshire tour, the relief pro¬ 
duced by them being temporary; and two or three |imcs with 
