THE QUARTER RASPED BENEATH THE OPENING OF A QUITTOR.
THE SINUSES OF A QUITTOR BEING OPERATED UPON.
This operation, when described, reads abhorrent; but it is really most humane. It is a common thing for a horse to be three, or even six months under treatment, on account of an ordinary quittor. During the entire space, the foot—the tenderest part of the horse's body—is burned with violent caustics, and has had heated wires thrust down its sinuses. By the operation proposed, the affair is settled in a few minutes. The horse seldom evinces much sensibility while the knife is being employed; in three days the animal is so far recovered as to allow the diseased member almost to be left to nature. The horse should, however, on no account do any work before the hoof is in some measure restored. Until the outer covering of dark horn has grown down, a bar shoe, well eased off the diseased quarter, should be worn. When the hoof is reproduced, instead of false quarter or other deformities, the usual results of quittor, it is all but impossible to decide which has been the affected foot, and which was operated upon.
The author has now stated at length that treatment which the horse for its own sake deserves, and which, for the honor of the being whom it serves, the animal should receive. He has, designedly, rather appealed to the reason of his readers than sought to enlist their feelings. The subject was, indeed, a wide one. Man has hitherto been too content to consider animals as something given absolutely to him to be treated according to his sovereign will or merest pleasure. He has not reflected that, when he was created lord of this earth, he was invested with a title which had its responsibilities as well as its privileges.
