24 Oh Salt as a Manure, and as a Condiment 



to make their whole mass of food sufficiently savoury to the 

 human taste. 



In trving this experiment it will be observed, that I did 

 not confine one parcel of hoiis to salt, and another to nn- 

 salted food. This mode of trying experiments is always 

 uncertain, as there will be frequently particular habits and 

 tendencies in the individual animals which will vary the 

 esults, and prevent their being uniform. The fairest way, 

 and that which is the least liable to error, is to compare 

 each animal with himself, by feeding him at one period 

 with one kind of food, and then, for an equal period, with 

 another. If this principle which I liave proceeded upon be 

 right, there is nothing in these experiments to encourage 

 the practice of administering salt to hogs with a view at 

 least to increase their tendency to fatten ; how far il may 

 contribute to keep them in health is a diflerent question, 

 and on which years of experience may probably be neces- 

 sary to decide. Now I am upon this subject I shall men- 

 tion (though totally foreign from the object of this essay), 

 that for most internal disorders which hogs are liable to, all 

 of which may be supposed to be more or less accompanied 

 with fever, I find no remedv so efficacious as antimony. 

 This mineral is said to have obtained its name from the 

 head of a religious house, who had administered it with 

 success to his hogs, giving it in such quantities to the 

 monks of his order as to poison them : a circumstance 

 which probably brought it at the time into disrepute as a 

 medicine, as well for the real as the metaphorical hogs. 

 The anecdote, however, whether true or false, induced me 

 some years aso to try it upon hogs ; and I can safelv aver 

 that, when taken in time, there are few internal diseases 

 which hogs are subject to that will not yield to antimony 

 in some form or other. That form which I prefer is en)etic 

 tartar, as lying in small compass. I give it in doses from 

 five to fortv or fifty grains, according to the age and strength 

 of my patient ; and I believe still larger doses niight be given 

 with equal safetv, as I do not recollect a single instance in 

 which the animal seemed to suffi?r from being over-dosed. 



To persons w ho have not tried the effi.cls of antimony 

 on the brute creation, the quantity 1 give may seem to be 

 ."Strangely di.-propirtionate to the bulk of the hog compared 

 with that of a man ; but the experience of manv years has 

 convinced me that there it' no analogv (I mean as far as 

 quantity is concerned) in the effects of antimony on the 

 human constitution, and on the constitution of inferior 

 animals. 



On 



