ii8 THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 



as to doubt the propriety of the practice, was, first, 

 the reason my groom generally gave me for it ; and, 

 secondly, its effects on my horses. 



As for my groom's reasons for these three doses in 

 a fortnight, the only effect they had upon me, when I 

 took the trouble to consider them, was to make me 

 smile at their absurdity, and to banish them from 

 my mind with the contempt they merited. The effect, 

 however, of these three doses of strong physic afforded 

 a salutary hint, which I did not so soon lose sight of. 

 At the expiration of the third dose I always found a 

 urine ball, or, perhaps two, were to be given to get 

 rid of a fulness of the legs, which was said to be always 

 produced by physic. " Indeed, then," said I, " are 

 the means to which we resort to strengthen the nervous 

 system, and to prepare it for severe exertion, productive 

 of a contrary effect ? Are we bringing on debility, of 

 which swelling of the legs is the most infallible proof, 

 by means intended to produce the opposite effect ? 

 Something must be wrong here, and we must endeavour 

 to alter it." 



When we look back into old writers on farriery, we 

 are as much astonished that more horses were not 

 killed by some of their cathartic drenches, as that any 

 of them were cured by some of their absurd nostrums. 

 There is an admirable hit at these ignoramuses in 

 Bucklaw's recipe for a strain, in the Tales of my Land- 

 lord. " Take," says he, "a fat sucking mastiff, flay 

 and bowel him, stuff him full of black and grey snails, 

 roast a reasonable time, and baste with oil of spikenard, 

 saffron, cinnamon, and honey, anoint with the dripping, 



