292 DISEASES OF THE STOMACH. 



(which appear to me to be) singular notions, Mr. Clark en- 

 deavours to show, that bots exert a salubrious influence in 

 the stomach of the horse by promoting digestion, acting as 

 what he calls vellicatories, the same as local stimulants and 

 detractors, on the principle of counter-irritation. I cannot, 

 however, acquiesce in these hypotheses, much less admit 

 what this learned writer has adduced in support of them. 

 That '^ children of cachetic habits breed worms faster than 

 healthy children, which may tend to suppress or moderate 

 the disease they incline to," is an opinion that obtained with 

 our predecessors in physic, but one which I should appre- 

 hend would find few or no advocates among the physicians 

 of the present age -, and that sheep in low damp situations, 

 by being infested with ivorms may be preserved from worse 

 disease, seems to me to be equally irreconcileable with the 

 sound pathology of the day. What Linnseus taught, '^^that lice, 

 by gnawing or irritating the skin of the head, excite a sort 

 of running sores among boys kept in filthy work-houses, or 

 confined places, and become strumous or swollen by the 

 confinement, by this excitement are preserved from coughs, 

 loheezings, blindness, epilepsy, ^cJ' might have been per- 

 fectly consistent with the medicine of his day ; but that 

 Mr. Clark should repeat it to strengthen his opinions in this 

 more enlightened age of medical science, I must say I feel 

 some surprise. And when, in proceeding, I find it stated 

 that it will not be easy to discover how far the access of 

 murrain in cattle ; glanders, farcy, ^c, in horses, may be 

 prevented; and moon-blindness, inflammation of the lungs, 

 spasms, splints, ^c, in any degree checked or subdued by the 

 presence of these local stimuli, — and, in another place, that 

 his own horse became fatter hi consequence of having had ad- 

 ministered to him about three dozen of bots' eggs, and that 

 the nasal farcy gleets of horses were cured by stimulation 

 TO THE STOMACH, from the exhibition of two powerful 

 astringents, cantharides and sulphate of zinc, I must add, 

 that I depart, toto ccelo, from the views here taken of the 

 effects, healthful or hurtful, of these little animals; and I 

 venture to be the more explicit in my opinions about these 



