252 THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 



body most readily affect the skin and relax it into a 

 moist, perspirable state, but as there are very few drugs 

 capable of nauseating a horse, and still fewer that will 

 do it mildly, so our dependence on antimonials to be- 

 nefit the skin by this particular state of the stomach is 

 lost : yet experience teaches us still to rely on them to 

 act favourably on the surface by other stomachic 

 agencies than direct nausea. For myself, I feel more 

 and more assured that in many cases of morbid con- 

 dition, but particularly in such as are accompanied 

 with thirst and evident derangement of the stomach 

 and bowels, betokened by irregular appetite, lampas, 

 &c., antimonials are highly beneficial. They are equally 

 so in most cases of constringed skin or hide-binding, 

 and still more so when it is affected, as in surfeits, with 

 either small bumps, or swelling, or partial detachments 

 of hair. Antimony received into the blood may relax 

 the vessels themselves, and those of the extreme sur- 

 face in particular, without disturbance to the stomach, 

 overlaid as much of it is with cuticle : certain it is, that 

 in the above cases, the effect of antimonials on the 

 skin and hair in particular, as well as on the other 

 symptoms of morbid condition, is often striking. In 

 some instances, as in those strongly marked with atony 

 and emaciation, the tonic effect of mineral agents, 

 of astringent bitters, spices, and in others of the more 

 diffusible stimuli of ale, malt, barley, oatmeal gruel, 

 &c. &c., experience proves to be the best adapted to 

 promote the desired end. 



But to proceed with this important subject with some 

 regularity, I would direct that in young plethoric horses 

 with much flesh on them, and which are of all others 

 the most subject to take on this state of morbid con- 

 dition, that one or two moderate bleedings may be pre- 

 mised, particularly in such as have been full fed for 



