251 



turf, perhaps we ought to reckon the common system of purgation ; not 

 that it is, at present, carried to the excess of former times, but that 

 Horses are yet, often unnecessarily, and too violently purged. The 

 discretion of administering these doses is generally in the hands of men 

 who are ill qualified to reason, or form a right judgment upon such a 

 subject, or to question the rationality of custom, when it prescribes ar- 

 bitrarily in the case. Purging physic and racing, are indeed looked 

 upon in the light of cause and effect. The dose in this case, as gene- 

 rally in others, is supposed to operate by a kind of magic, about the 

 mode or rationality of which, the administrator neither knows or en- 

 quires, more than the animal which swallows it. But the reason for 

 purging a healthy Horse immediately destined to violent exertion, lies 

 very near the surface. It is simply, as I believe I have before ob- 

 served, to unlade his stufl[ed entrails, and to cool his blood, and in this 

 affair, as in others already adverted to, it is far the most safe to err, on 

 the side of forbearance. As to suffering grooms to give violent purges 

 to Race-horses, already run off their legs, and debilitated by travel and 

 hard work, under the idea of getting them right, is a wrong-headedness 

 which would do no discredit to the inmates of Bedlam, 



SECTION 



