DIURETICS. 113 



luay perspire through exertion, gets rid of superabundant 

 fluid through the kidneys. This accounts for the greater 

 susceptibility of the kidneys in horses, and the more avail- 

 able agency of diuretic medicines in these animals. The 

 physician^ when called to a case of fever, prescribes with 

 certain effect his diaphoretics — mediciues that induce per- 

 spiration. The veterinarian possesses little of such medi- 

 cinal power that he can rely on ; there is no medicine 

 that will certainly produce diaphoresis in a horse. In 

 making this assertion, I am quite ahve to the properties 

 ascribed by our best authorities to antimony; and, as creating 

 (with the aid of clothing) a determination to the skin, I am 

 quite ready to join them in opinion : but my disbehef of 

 any medicine being able to produce actual diaphoresis at any- 

 time must be repeated. Some give nitrous (ether to act as 

 a diaphoretic. I myself have thought hellebore manifested 

 that tendency. However, whatever may be the diaphoretic 

 agent, it has not such decided action that it can be em- 

 ployed with confidence to arrest the progress of inflamma- 

 tion. The veterinary surgeon, therefore, is driven to operate 

 upon the kidneys, through which channels we cannot expect 

 the benefit which arises from perspiration of so large a surface 

 as the skin. In fact, diuresis is not an operation to be 

 generally employed for the abatement of inflammation, so 

 much as for the removal of its consequences. In the acute 

 stage of inflammation I do not think much good is done by 

 diuretic medicines ; none whatever during the action of 

 purgatives : and it is where inflammation has been acute, 

 and effusion is taking place, or where it is chronic, with a 

 tendency to effusion, that diuretics prove most serviceable. 



Diuretic Substances. — Many medicines, and some de- 

 scriptions of provender, prove diuretic to the horse. Mow- 

 burnt hay, foxy oats, and all sorts of high-dried or over 

 fermented food, are apt to have a diuretic effect on animals 

 unaccustomed to eat them ; and nothing tends to debihtate 

 a horse so much as the prolonged excitation of the kidneys. 

 In the exhibition of diuretics it is necessary to be more 

 attentive to the doses, and the inter%-als at which we repeat 



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