On the Use and Abuse of Purgatives. 3 



Now that Horses may be carried through (he operation of a Purg^a- 

 tive with perfect safety^ in all cases where it is proper to Physic them 

 ut all^ I have no hesitation in admitting ; and yet it is by no means 

 ancommon to hear even Racing' Grooms^ and that description of 

 people who are supposed to have the greatest skill in such matters, 

 from the extent of their practice, speak with the greatest composure 

 of Horses^ being now and then (according to their own phrase) lost 

 in Physic. And these fatal accidents they usually attribute to the 

 badness of the Horse's constitution, the foulness of his inside, or to 

 some other mysterious cause, which they express in their own pecu- 

 liar unintelligible jai^on, to which it is impossible tliey themselves 

 can have any definite ideas affixed. 



Whereas one seldom hears- these fatal accidents attributed to. their 

 real cause, which is in all cases to be sought for, either in the inju- 

 dicious ingredients of the purgative composition, or in the improper 

 mode of treating the Horse under its operation. Sometimes indeed 

 the death of the animal may have been occasioned by the joint co- 

 ©peration of both these circumstances. 



For it must be perfectly evident to the commonest understanding, 

 that if a purging ball, made of coarse and injudicious materials, be 

 sufficient of itself to overpurge and violently to debilitate a Horse, 

 that is treated with care and judgment under its operation, the same 

 dose given to the same horse, if treated in the common iujudicious 

 mode, would be sufficient to occasion his death. 



Let it not, however, be supposed that I mean to insinuate, much 

 less to admit, that Horses which die under the operation of Physic, 

 sink in consequence of the mere exhaustion resulting from the action 

 of the medicine, inasmuch as the cause of death, in all such cases, 

 is uniformly owing to inflammation taking place, in some gart of the 

 alimentary canal. 



