PRECAUTIONS IN MOULTING SEASON 169 



In a former letter I have stated that I never 

 had but one dead hunter dragged out of my stable, 

 and that event was occasioned by a sudden collapsion 

 of the pores, from standing still by a covert-side in 

 rain whilst a fox was dug out, after a short burst of 

 only twelve minutes, but just enough to do the mis- 

 chief ; neither do I recollect but two instances of 

 dangerous inflammatory attacks, in both which cases 

 the horses recovered and did well. In addition to this, 

 I now declare that I never had a horse that went 

 blind in my possession ; I never had one that went 

 broken-winded ; I never had a horse suffer from 

 worms ; neither did I ever experience lameness from 

 thrushes, cracked heels, etc. All this good fortune 

 I attribute to three simple causes : first, to never 

 turning horses out, except in cases of accident ; 

 secondly, to giving them plenty of exercise, generally 

 bordering upon work ; and thirdly, to never suffering 

 them to go more than six weeks or two months, when 

 in work, without giving them either a dose of physic 

 or alteratives, which, discharging by the skin, the 

 bowels, or the kidneys, act sufficiently for my purpose. 

 I have before described what I consider the best 

 method of physicking horses, in the progress of which 

 I have never had an accident. I have always borne 

 in my mind what I have learnt in conversation with 

 veterinary surgeons, that, though the stomach of a 

 horse be proverbially strong, yet the intestines through 

 which the drugs have to pass are extremely delicate, 

 and highly sensible to anything of an acrimonious 

 nature. The alterative I have chiefly made use of 



