On the Yellow Water of Horses. 145 



A medical gentleman recommended the mode of ad- 

 ministering calomel to be, — siift'ering the horse to lick 

 in thirty grains of calomel, with salt, three or four times 

 a day. This method had been previously pursued. A 

 servant was slightly salivated, by improvidently letting 

 the horse lick the calomel and salt, frequently, off his 

 hand. The same physician informed me, that the calo- 

 m^/ entered the system the soonest in this way; and that, 

 in- a foreign country, from whence he came, he had 

 known horses cured of this disease by calomel thus giv- 

 en, with the addition of bleeding and purging. 



The whole of the cure, I am convinced, depends on 

 attacking the complaint in its Jirst stage, with depleting 

 and cooling remedies. After a certain point, which oc- 

 curs probably in the first 24, or at farthest 48 hours, it 

 seems to me, nothing will cure; yet every thing should 

 be pertinaciously attempted. 



I shall not enter the lists, for or against plentiful blood 

 letting. The lancet is held by some, in human sub- 

 jects, to be the magick wand of Hygaia; and by others, 

 the minister of death. So may they deem the fleam, 

 applied to horses. Yet notwithstanding the prejudices 

 aorainst it, I do not see what other chance there is, in a 

 disease so acute, that the subject of it may fall a victim, 

 before any other depletory remedy can operate. Twelve 

 or fourteen, at least, and often twenty-four hours, elapse, 

 before any medicine taken into the stomach of a horse, 

 has its effect. Purges and clysters only can be admi- 

 nistered with effect and success. No emetic, if it were 

 proper, operates on an horse. The intestines of an horse, 

 if extended, measure from 30 to 36 yards in length ; 

 and the peristaltic motion is slow, as it is in most animals 



