THE USE OF THE LANCET IN BLEEDING THE HORSE. 579 
For my own part, I have adopted the lancet these five years, 
and it serves every useful purpose. I had always a dislike to ham¬ 
mering a fleam into a horse’s neck with a wooden beetle. I had 
lost mine one stormy day on the banks of the Tweed, between 
Inverleithen and Peebles, and found myself somewhat at a loss 
when I got to the place where my patient was. I, however, tried 
the edge of my hand, and found it to answer, and never more 
carried a beetle : shortly afterward, however, I began to use the 
lancet. 
I have laid my old friends, the fleams, comfortably by, and 
never afterwards took them out but when 1 lent them to a butcher 
to bleed his calves. They are again deposited as memorials of 
auld times ; and will never more be disturbed unless the butcher 
wants them for his calves again. The very appearance of the 
lancet, compared with the fleam and the bloodstick, would 
make any man that had regard to the respectability of the 
profession betake himself to the use of it. The lancet is al¬ 
lowed by its opponents to be a more surgical instrument in the 
hands of a well-taught veterinary practitioner; then let him use 
it. He that cannot use it, let him go back to his school and 
learn, if they can teach him ; and not come out again until he 
is well-taught, and can bleed with a lancet from every accessi¬ 
ble vein. There is no fear that the lancet will not, in the hands 
of him who is accustomed to its use, pierce at the first thrust 
as deeply as can be wished. I use a lancet a little stouter than 
that employed by the human surgeon, straight on one side, and 
a little curved up at the point; and with this I could make a 
wound four inches long if I wanted it. It answers every useful 
purpose, although it has no shoulders or files at the base; and I 
certainly never lost sight of it, and found it sticking in the horse’s 
neck yet. Many thanks to Mr. Gibson for the introduction of 
such a subject. 
[We must apologize to Mr. Horsburgh for translating the 
‘Howland braid Scotch,” in which a great part of his letter 
was written. His observations, although confined to the 
comparative value of the lancet and the fleam, are too much 
connected with the respectability of our profession to need any 
dress of this kind. One paragrapli alone we will give in its 
vernacular orthography, and none of our readers will take it 
amiss, although it will come home to not a few of them. 
** Pardon me, but we’ave haen sic a heap of foreen cases for 
some time that I thought maist o’our ain kintry-folk were either 
dead, or some’at waur come o’er ’em.”—Y.] 
