350 • ft FIRING^ HORSES; 
31. Have you found any means by which the disease is kept 
in check or even partially prevented ? 
32. Are any calves reared on the farm, and, if so, do they 
suffer from the disease called hoose” or husk ?” 
33. Have apparently healthy lambs, which had been reared 
with those that were diseased, been kept as stock-sheep 
for use during the following or succeeding years ? 
Date, 
Signed, 
March , 1872. 
A Member of the Lincolnshire 
Agricultural Society. 
This list should be returned to the Secretary of the 
Lincolnshire Agricultural Society before the Q5th of March. 
“FIRING” HORSES. 
Applying a red-hot iron to the surface of the body for 
the cure of certain diseases or injuries is a very ancient sur¬ 
gical remedy, and one of undoubted efficacy in certain cir¬ 
cumstances. Its beneficial employment in veterinary and 
human surgery has long been recognised, and in particular 
cases it is very questionable if any other remedy would be 
productive of so much relief^ It would be out of place in a 
journal like the Animal World to discuss the modus operandi 
of the actual cautery; but the painfulness of the operation, 
the best means of annulling or ameliorating that pain, and 
the question as to whether firing” is not more frequently 
resorted to than is at all necessary, are, I think, subjects 
quite within its scope, and may be advantageously discussed 
in its columns. 
It is questionable whether the application of the hot iron 
to a horse’s skin, in the way it is usually applied by a well- 
instructed veterinary surgeon, induces such intense pain as 
those unaccustomed to perform operations on the animal 
would imagine. If the iron is very hot-—bright red tint 
is proper—and the operator’s hand light and steady, the 
burning sensation is not nearly so acute as when the instru¬ 
ment is at a lower temperature, and consequently darker 
