MOLTEN GREASE. PHVSIOLOGY OF. t'3 



relapse is to be dreaded, as a fresh attack would prove much more obstinate 

 than the first. The dung, by its quantity, consistence, regularity, and gene- 

 ral appearance, will afford the best means of judging when the boweU are 

 completely cleared of their offensive contents; for it not unfrequently happens 

 that several tolerable stools may be procured by the help of medicine, and )e( 

 some lumps, replete with danger, remain behind. The pulse, that great c i- 

 terion of health or disease, by dint of low living, may have regained its natur il 

 state, and so remain steadily for a tolerably long period : but watching the dung 

 for a day or two will corroborate that main indication of health, or by its ir- 

 regularity dispel an ill-founded reliance on the completeness of the cure. Yet 

 will the administering of purgatives, or even alteratives, of aloes in particular, 

 be found full of danger, as tending to irritate the bowels anew. The same 

 may be said of all stimulants whatever, whether applied externally or given in 

 the form of cordials, notwithstanding the animal may evince signs of return- 

 ing pain, and these be ascertained by the corresponding symptoms of low 

 pulse, warm legs and ears, to arise from spasmodic or flatulent colic only. 

 For these returning pains are usually occasioned by the soft kind of regimen 

 just recommended; to which the patient may have been subjected during thia 

 illness for the first time since it was a foal. 1 have known a small feed of corn 

 or two effect relief from lowness, in the case of horses which had been long 

 time previously used to hard food : if these be devoured voraciously, this will 

 tend to prove 1st, that the change is desirable, and 2dly, that the next feed 

 should consist of broken oats — or a new disease will be engendered. Adopt the 

 tonic system, recommended generally, at page 69. 



MOLTEN GREASE 



Is but a variety of inflammation of the intestines when the subject of attack 

 happens to be very fat, and little accustomed to exercise; when marked by 

 costiveness, it may be treated as such ; or, if attended by a looseness, may 

 rather be considered as a spasmodic effort of nature to relieve itself of an un- 

 natural load. The vulgar name given to this aflf'ection of the intestines is 

 farther supported by the popular notion that the fat, or grease, which the in- 

 dividual possessed in a superlative degree, had melted (or was molten) and 

 passed into the guts, whence it was expelled with the faeces. This, however, 

 is physiologically impossible, notwithstanding the support such a notion has 

 received from some revered authors ; the appearance of slimy unctuous matter 

 along with the dung, more particularly when this is much hardened, being no 

 other than the mucous secretion described at pages 22, 23, as designed by na- 

 ture to defend the surface of the intestines from the injurious action of hard 

 substances that might be taken into the stomach. Indeed, this intention of 

 nature in providing such a defence is demonstrable in the fact, that the harder 

 the knobs ofdungmaybe that the animal presseth forth, the greater is the 

 quantity of this greasy, unctuous, or mucous secretion that is eliminated along 

 with it, and which gives name to the disorder. Probably, the secretion of thia 

 grease may then proceed with more celerity ; its access may be greater, the 

 more it is thus required by nature to defend the alimentary passage. This 

 supposition is drawn from the fact just stated; but, whether the well-founded 

 conjecture be too hastily hazarded, is for the more minute inquirer to conclude 

 upon, or investigate farther, as may seem good to him. 



At any rate, the doctrine of effusion, or the passing of those secretions, 

 whether mucous or aqueous, from one part of the system to another, as nature 

 or accident may require the supply, is tolerably evident from another circunv 

 ftauce that is often recurring in cases of molten grease. [The subject is more 

 fully treated of at the page just referred to.] The perspiration t»f the two 8« 

 10 



