52 THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 



he takes it, and by stable time the next evening it is 

 beginning to set, and the horse is comfortable and 

 well, instead of enduring perhaps thirty-six hours of 

 continued sickness. I strongly recommend my 

 readers to procure their physic balls from a veterinary 

 surgeon in their neighbourhood, as professional men 

 prepare them in a safer and more convenient form, 

 and cold water may be given with it, with safety, if a 

 horse refuses warm. Grooms do not like this altera- 

 tion of exercising the horse on the day he takes the 

 ball, and will tell us it ought to lie in them for a day 

 or it does not operate so well. One moment's re- 

 flection will convince us that as there can be no virtue 

 in the aloe but that of clearing the intestines, the 

 sooner it does its office the better. They might as 

 well say that an emetic should lie a whole day in a 

 man's stomach before it is suffered to operate. 



