THE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 527 



slowly acted upon, it proves cathartic ; and if the 

 dose be extremely small, diaphoretic. 



Thus, though vegetable acids extract so little from 

 this metal, that the remainder seems to lose nothing 

 of its weight, the tinctures prove, in large doses, 

 strongly emetic ; and in smaller ones, powerfully dia- 

 phoretic. The regulus has been cast into the form 

 of pills, which acted as violent cathartics, though with- 

 out undergoing any diminution in their weight in their 

 passage through the body, and this repeatedly for a 

 great number of times. These preparations, however, 

 exhibited to the horse, have a less sensible effect. Not- 

 withstanding this, they are of great importance in the 

 treatment of several diseases with which he may be 

 afflicted. This metal, divested of the inflammable 

 principle, which it has in common with other metallic 

 bodies that are reducible to a calx, becomes indisso- 

 luble and inactive. The calx, nevertheless, when urged 

 with a strong fire, melts into a glass, which is as easy 

 of solution, and as violent in operation in the human 

 subject, as the regulus itself; the glass, thoroughly 

 mixed with such substances as prevents its solubility, 

 as wax, resin, and the like, is again rendered mild. 



Vegetable acids, as have dready been observed, dis- 

 solve but an extremely minute portion of the metal ; 

 the solution, nevertheless, is powerful. The nitrous 

 and vitriohc acids only corrode it into a powder, to 

 which they adhere so slightly as to be separable in a 

 considerable degree by water, and totally by fire, leav- 

 ing the regulus in the form of a calx similar to that 

 prepared by fire alone. The marine acid has a very 

 diiFerent effect ; this reduces the regulus into a violent 

 corrosive ; and though it unites with difficulty, yet it 

 adheres so very closely, as not to be separable by any 

 ablution, nor by fire, the regulus rismg along with it. 



