108 TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 



than aloes. In one mare (D 23), to whom was given on 

 account of cracked heels, 9ij of the powder was sixty-seven 

 hours before it purged the animal. (Dec, 1850.) 



The expressed oil is sometimes used as a highly powerful 

 purgative. I believe this preparation not to be fitted for 

 universal adoption, on account both of the uncertainty of its 

 operation, and its extreme violence when it does act. I 

 reckon an average dose to be about thirty drops. I once 

 gave a drachm ; from which the horse became violently purged 

 twenty-four hours afterwards. 



Tlie farina appears the preferable form for the exhibition 

 of croton. Deprived of its oil, it seems to have lost much 

 of its acridity, and comes to us as a purgative, if not more 

 certain, at least with less danger in its operation. Indeed, 

 some practitioners are in the habit of prescribing it in pre- 

 ference to aloes : for my own part, I seldom use it unless it 

 be for lock-jaw, or for horses that are troublesome in 

 taking balls ; on those occasions it being convenient to have 

 a powder which can be introduced into a bran-mash, or a 

 pail of water. The warmest advocate in praise of croton I 

 know is Mr. W. Chadwick, V. S., Hot Wells. In a commu- 

 nication he sent, in the year 1832, to ' The Veterinarian,' 

 he states that for physic, he *^ always makes up a croton 

 ball;^^ and that he considers five grains equal to a drachm 

 of aloes : a proportion, which I believe, is now pretty uni- 

 versally admitted. The average dose, therefore, may be 

 rated at from thirty to forty grains. In opposition to this 

 very favorable report, it is my duty to state, that, with other 

 practitioners, fatal cases have occurred from the exhibition 

 of croton. Mr. Cartwright, who is known, not less on 

 account of the number than the practical worth of his com- 

 munications to ' The Veterinarian,^ relates an occurrence of 

 this kind. He gave a pony 25 grains of croton seeds (not 

 the /«r^^^c5), which operated the following day, and continued 

 purging for three successive days, when it died with symp- 

 toms of a very ambiguous character. The csecuni and colon 

 were studded with ulceration. It appears, therefore, pretty 

 well established, that the farina is the preferable preparation 



