CONDITION OF HUNTERS RESUMED 297 



the cause of the malady, or that which has more or 

 less influence in its progress or continuance. The 

 simplest view we can take of the exhibition of a dose 

 of cathartic medicine is the expulsion of the faecal 

 contents of the large intestines in a shorter time than 

 they otherwise would have been discharged. This 

 is what is called " unloading the bowels," and is 

 the principal intention in purging horses that have 

 been recently taken up from grass. But it is scarcely 

 possible thus to limit its operation ; for every laxative 

 that we administer must in some degree augment the 

 intestinal secretions, if not the biliary and pancreatic 

 as well, and thus remotely be productive of other 

 consequences. When we improve the condition of 

 a horse in apparent health by the administration of 

 alteratives, or laxatives, or cathartics, we are said 

 to accomplish it by urging the various organs employed 

 in the digestive process to a more vigorous performance 

 of their functions ; but if all the meUoration the 

 animal's constitution has evidently experienced be 

 duly estimated, this confined reasoning appears to be 

 inadequate and unsatisfactory. There would seem 

 to be disorder or derangement somewhere in the 

 system in all these cases, the removal or rectification 

 of which, either temporary or permanent, was the 

 remote effect of the medicine, and that on which its 

 salutary efficacy depended. How much do a few 

 well-timed doses of laxative medicine contribute to 

 restore the condition of a poor horse ! — how in- 

 fluential soiling is in inducing a thriving diathesis, and 

 promoting fatness and sleekness, and every other ap- 



