24 
THE COMPARATIVE EFFECT OF THE 
of much post-mortem examination, that its effect as a bandage 
is only ideal! The comparison, then, rests merely between their 
effects;—both are counter-irritants, both depletives : the question 
is, which of the two is most effectually such ? The answer to 
this I am unable to furnish ; but I confess I reluctantly bow, even 
to such authority as Mr. Spooner’s, when he denies the effect of 
the actual cautery as a bandage. Nothing, however, we know, 
is so hard as to unlearn ; and we almost feel ashamed of having 
blundered through life in any palpable error, which, if Mr. Spooner 
is correct, has been the case with myself, and with thousands of 
other much wiser men, the late Mr. Field of the number. 
Mr. Spooner now proceeds to a very material point, touching 
the comparative advantages of the two operations in question ; 
and this is—the time required for their respective effects to tell, 
as well as to shew that, as regards those of the seton, its occa¬ 
sional failure is intimately connected with this very point. In 
the many cases in which my opinion has been asked respecting 
the necessity or non-necessity of having a hunter fired, I have 
always insisted on two points, whenever the operation has been 
determined upon: first, the preparation of the horse, and, con¬ 
sequently, his leg, previous to its being performed; and, secondly, 
plenty of time and quiet to the limb afterwards. Now, to the 
sportsman, the mere consideration of time is not so very import¬ 
ant. If a sinew case, he of course throws up his horse for the 
season, and hence the desideratum is at his command ; and if it 
be only a splent, or incipient bone-spavin, a dose or two of mild 
physic, at the end of a month after the operation—should the 
disease shew itself early in the winter—brings his nag into work 
again, fit to finish the season. But as regards the owner of 
horses, whose only means of keeping them at all arise from the 
produce of their labours, it is, as the French say, une autre 
chose.” Now, Mr. Spooner tells us, the little apparent reme¬ 
dial injury that is done to horses by setoning them is the cause 
of their being taken again into work, much sooner than those 
that have been fired; and it is on this account that the seton 
may occasionally appear to have failed. This objection to the 
operation, however, can always be obviated by the operator 
firmly insisting on a certain period of rest, according with ex¬ 
isting circumstances ; but I will say, that if Mr. Spooner has 
found out that less time is required, after the operation of seton¬ 
ing, than after that of the iron, to give full effect to it, a very great 
point has been gained. Still, I am inclined to think that in this 
particular it would be a neck-and-neck race between the iron 
and the steel, and, as far as road-work is concerned, I think I 
could name the winner; I have seen many coach-horses put 
