296 THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 



such as before and after work, and the consequent 

 changes in quantity and quahty of food. The febrile 

 heat, occasioned by the severe work we give them, 

 causes a deficiency in that mucus (as every observant 

 groom must be aware of, whenever he sets fair his 

 horses' bed) which facihtates the passage of the food, 

 and which deficiency of course produces costiveness, 

 and all its dangerous consequences. I am quite sure 

 that not only is this treatment beneficial to general 

 condition, but a means of warding off those inflamma- 

 tory attacks to which all horses, but particularly 

 those who eat much corn, are so subject. When 

 bowels are overloaded no animal is safe ; for the coats 

 of the intestines lose their proper tone, and a healthy 

 secretion is denied them. 



What I have now said is founded on my own practical 

 observation, more deeply impressed on my mind by 

 the several narrow escapes I have had of losing 

 valuable horses from not paying attention to their 

 bowels, when apparently in the best of health ; but I 

 am anxious that the reader should be furnished with 

 still better authority ; and shaU therefore present to 

 him the following passage from Mr WiUiam Percivall's 

 Lecture on Purgation and Purgative Medicines : — 



" I shall next cursorily point out the healthy states, 

 and some of the diseased or disordered conditions of 

 body, in which we are in the habit of administering 

 cathartic medicines : for purgatives are sometimes 

 given in health, as preparatives, or auxiliaries to 

 putting horses into condition ; whereas they are 

 never given in disease but to remove that which is 



