A PAIR OF ROWELING SCISSORS, FOR
MAKING SMALL INCISIONS THROUGH
THE HORSE'S SKIN.
A SETON NEEDLE ARMED WITH A TAPE, A, AND FIXED INTO
A HOLLOW HANDLE BY MEANS OF A SCREW, B.
A BLUNT SETON NEEDLE.
A TUMOR BEING CUT WITH A PROBE-POINTED KNIFE.
This operation was first applied to the horse by the late Professor Sewell. It is intended to relieve the lameness consequent upon exostosis situated on the shin-bone. A pair of roweling scissors are first employed to snip the skin above and below the tumor. Then a blunt seton needle, being fixed into a hollow handle by means of a screw, and armed with a tape knotted at one end, is to be used. The needle is violently driven through, and breaks down the cellular tissue which attaches the skin to the tumor. The point is forced to enter at one snip and come out at the other, after which the needle is withdrawn by the first opening. A probe-pointed knife is then introduced into the space thus made; the tumor is sliced into as many pieces as may please the operator or the nature of the growth will admit of. The knife is afterward retracted, and the needle, released from the handle, is passed through the openings, or in at one snip and out at the other. The knot at the end of the tape prevents that being drawn after the needle. The unknotted end is next withdrawn from the needle and tied into a large knot—the whole forming a seton. The operation is occasionally varied by smearing the tape with terebinthinate of cantharides, and sometimes by blistering over tumor, seton and all. This last practice may add to the severity of the operation, but it seems calculated to do little good. Breaking down the attachment of the skin and slicing the tumor appear designed to deprive the growth of blood, while a blister seems calculated to draw to the part an excess of that which the operation was intended to dispel.