W. L. ZUILL. 
254 
action of firing, and leave the back door open by saying it may 
be necessary to fire three, four or more times before we remove 
the lameness; while in our inner conscience, we feel certain that 
before this stage is reached, the owner of the animal will become 
tired of the treatment and give the beast away. One of my 
friends, who I do not hesitate to say is one of the best practition¬ 
ers in Philadelphia, is honest enough to advise his clients in this 
way rather than undertake the treatment of spavin. To quote 
from a letter received from him a few days ago, he says, “I 
generally try to talk my clients into selling these animals and 
buying better ones.” I will show later on that this advice is not 
good, because he has had seventy-five percent, of cures in his 
practice, and his failures have been in horses over twenty years old. 
Firing for spavin lameness, whether in lines or points, super¬ 
ficial or deep, has never in my hands given any good results, 
and in very many instances has made the animal much worse 
than he otherwise would have been. Firing a horse for spavin 
has never brought me a single friend or client, but has caused 
me to lose many good ones. 
All writers on this subject end their discourse on treatment 
with this advice,—“After the animal has been fired a number of 
times and does not get well of his lameness, you may then make 
section of the cunean tendon of the flexer metatarsi.” This is 
the worst possible advice either to give or follow, because no 
horse has ever been cured by section of the cunean tendon after 
deep and repeated fire. If the fire has been so light as to cause 
little or no induration of the tissues, good may follow, but it will 
entirely depend upon the structural changes brought about by 
the cautery. 
Resection of the Cunean Tendon .—The pernicious results of fir¬ 
ing forced upon my notice in many instances, together with an 
entire absence of anything justifying the operation, induced me 
to abandon it five or six years ago. Since that time I have 
treated all my cases of spavin lameness by a re-section of cunean 
tendon of the flexor metatarsi; This operation has been applied 
in all forms of hock lameness, except the very acute form and 
