LOCAL REMEDIES FOR INFLAMMATION. 121 



NARCOTICS. 



The false notions I imbibed during my pupilage, for too 

 many years closed my mind against the use of narcotics. I 

 was told opium took no sucb effects upon horses as upon 

 men, and I believed the dogma, and took no further concern 

 about narcotic power; using the medicine only as an anti- 

 spasmodic, an astringent, and an allayer of pain. Accident 

 at length revealed to me its narcotic or soporific virtues. 

 A mare was suffering from diarrhoea, and had been reduced 

 to a weakly state by the disorder : it had likewise lost 

 the appetite, when, to suppress the discharge from the 

 bowels, I added to the dose of Jj of P. Creta Comp. c. 

 Opio (which she had been taking for three days), one 

 ounce of laudanum. Ten or fifteen minutes after swallowing 

 it the head was hung, and the animal would soon have 

 fallen had it not reeled against the side of the box, 

 where she supported herself, standing with her head hanging 

 down, and her eyes closed, as if in a profound sleep, though 

 certainly no snoring was heard : and thus it continued for 

 an hour, when it once more stood without support : then 

 turning the body half round, with the head pressed against 

 the boards, the mare occasionally bored forwards, like a 

 horse with the staggers, evidently experiencing, though 

 the eyes now were opened, stupor and vertigo. I opened 

 the eyelids while closed, but found the pupils active and 

 intolerant of light. The stupefying or soporific effects 

 of the opium were most evident. The mare slept, or re- 

 mained insensible, for an hour, and was not herself again 

 for two hours more. The effects commenced in ten or fifteen 

 minutes after taking the laudanum. 



LOCAL REMEDIES FOR INFLAMMATION 



Are employed by themselves, or in conjunction with 

 general ones. When the inflammation is trifling and super- 

 ficial we may trust the cure to local means alone : it is not 



