TREATMENT OF DISEASE. 49 



any difficulty in swallowing the ball, may be mostly traced. 

 Of the first figure I have given balls, for nearly thirty 

 years : and I have never once witnessed an accident — never 

 once been troubled with a case of " ball sticking in the 

 throat.^' 



Proper shape. Improper shape. 



Powders are only adapted for medicines of an inodorous and 

 tasteless character, such as calomel and antimony. Nitre 

 seems, however, to be an exception to this rule. A horse 

 appears to be pleased with the flavour of salt, for he will 

 readily eat bran- mashes with nitre in them ; or if a piece of 

 rock salt be in his manger, he will lick it continually. 



The Liquid Form possesses the advantage of more 

 speedy operation ; this is an advantage, however, which sup- 

 posing the drench to be introduced into the stomach, an afikir 

 always of more or less uncertainty, which on too many 

 occasions is not a little inhanced by the dislike the animal 

 has to the medicine and to the mode of administration, also 

 by the animal's struggles and plunges during its exhibi- ^ 

 tion. Moreover, the drench cannot take effect until it is in- 

 troduced into the stomach ; and how to get it there is a 

 question not always of easy solution. Some horses will 

 fake a drench in the common way, with the drench-horn, 

 very well ; others will swallow it best out of a wine bottle : 

 while others, again, prove so untoward and refractory as 

 hardly to take it at all. In fact, though I am willing to 

 admit that an expert operator with an able assistant may 

 e^dnce much dexterity in giving drenches, it too often hap- 

 pens, either from unsteadiness of the horse, or clumsiness of 

 the administrator, that the patient loses half his dose ; in con- 

 sequence of this, the effect, calculated on, is not produced. 

 Thus in our effort to gain time, we have lost time, inasmuch 

 as we are obliged to repeat the drench. On this account, 

 a larger dose of physic in solution, is generally required to 



I. 4 



