98 HORSE AND MAN. 



to the horses, the men evidently wished to benefit 

 them, and only treated the animals with the same 

 recklessness with which they would have treated 

 themselves or their friends. 



I have had large experience among the poor and 

 uneducated, and have always been struck with 

 the curious fact that as regards medicines they will 

 much rather take the opinion of persons in their own 

 rank of life than that of the President of the College 

 of Physicians, and never seem able to overcome a 

 lurking distrust of any one who is better educated 

 than themselves. 



Arsenic, corrosive sublimate, nitre, aloes, and 

 drugs of a similarly powerful character are among the 

 medicines which the groom likes to have by him, and 

 which he will administer as often, and in such quan- 

 tities, as may happen to please him. So the only plan 

 is not only to forbid to the servants the administra- 

 tion of any drugs or applications, but to make even 

 the possession of them a ground for instant dismissal. 



' So nearly related,' writes Mr. J. Irvine Lupton, 

 ' are the quantity of aloes which relaxes and the 

 amount which kills, that probably aloes have 

 poisoned more horses than all other drugs in the 

 Pharmacopoeia.' After entering into the anatomical 

 details of the horse's digestive organs, and the effect 

 of this drug upon them, he proceeds as follows : — 



