434 Veterinary Medicine. 



habits of constipation, muco-enteric irritation, indigestion, 

 nervous, urinar)' or cutaneous disorders will often be greatly 

 benefited or entirel}' restored b}^ systematic exercise. This is one 

 of the great advantages of a run at pasture, as the subject secures 

 at once the laxative cholagogue diet, an abundant supply of 

 ox3^gen, a better tone of the muscular and general system, and a 

 more perfect disintegration of albuminoids. Sea air with its 

 abundance of ozone is especially advantageous. 



In the carnivora while we cannot send them to grass, much can 

 be done in the way of systematic exercise, and in the case of city 

 dogs a change to the country, where the\- can live out of doors 

 and will be tempted to con.stant exerci.se and play, will go far to 

 correct a faulty liver. 



Laxatives. Cholagognes. When a free action of bowels and 

 liver cannot be secured by succulent food and exercise, we can 

 fall back on medicinal laxatives. These are advantageous in 

 various ways. Some laxatives like podophyllin, aloes, colocynth, 

 rhubarb, senna, jalap, and taraxacum act directly on the liver in 

 increasing the secretion of bile. These may be used for a length 

 of time in small doses and in combination with the alkalies. 

 Other aperients act directly on the bowel carrying away the ex- 

 cess of bile, the albuminoids and saccharine matter that would 

 otherwise be absorbed, and by a secretion from the portal veins, 

 abstracting nitrogenous and saccharine elements which would 

 otherwise overtax the liver to tran.sform them. Thus indirectly 

 these also act as cholagogues by withholding the excess of ma- 

 terial on which it has to operate, and by rousing its functions 

 sympathetically with those of the bowels. Thus sulphates of 

 magnesia and soda, and tartrates and citrates of the .same bases, 

 given in the morning fasting, dissolved in a large quantity of warm 

 water and conjoined with sodium chloride, ammonium chloride, 

 sodium carbonate or other alkaline salts, or with one or more of 

 the vegetable cholagogues above mentioned, may be continued for 

 a length of time until the normal functions have been re-estab- 

 lished, and will maintain themselves irrespective of this stimulus. 



Calomel (and even mercuric chloride in small doses), though it 

 is not experimentally proved to be a direct cholagogue, is one of 

 the very be.st correctives of impaired hepatic function. It expels 

 the bile from the duodenum and bowels generally, thereby pre- 



