332 THERAPEUTIC TREATMENT. 



have rewarded Professor Sewell for the same, with sulphate of 

 copper for his specific. In later times still, in France, chloride of 

 sodium (common salt) has received favourable notice from the 

 Royal Agricultural Society. It is hardly requisite to add, that, 

 had any one of these " remedies" turned out to be curative of 

 glanders, we should not, at the present hour, be painfully com- 

 pelled, as for hundreds of years our ancestors have been, to doom 

 unfortunate glandered patients to a premature and opprobrious 

 death. 



Sulphate of Copper {blue vitriol) has had in our own 

 country, for a great many years, a sort of established reputation 

 among veterinary surgeons as a remedy for glanders and farcy. I 

 believe that it was introduced into our " farcy ball" by the late 

 Professor (Coleman) ; and, though he never ascribed to it any 

 specific virtues, the result was, that a good many of his pupils — 

 my father among the number — were in the habit of administering 

 it in glanders and farcy, on the belief of some supposed benefit 

 derived from its use, in all cases where medicine was given save 

 such as were devoted to experiments with some new remedy or 

 untried medicine. Professor Sewell, however, has not hesitated to 

 declare it to be, administered in a. fluid instead of a solid state, " a 

 remedy for glanders." His words are — '' Although there are prac- 

 titioners that condemn this, more bear me out. I have a horse 

 that has been cured now (1827) four years. Many of the profes- 

 sion have attempted to accomplish this by medicine in a solid form ; 

 but the same quantity which, so given, would inflame the stomach 

 and bowels and destroy the animal, may be exhibited innocuously 

 in a state of solution : and it succeeds best when the solution con- 

 tains some mucilage, as gum arabic*." As a general dose, Mr. 

 Sewell recommends six drachms of the salt in two or three pints of 

 water thickened with mucilage. Mr. Youatt thinks — and I quite 

 agree with him — that this is much too large a dose : from half-a- 

 drachm gradually increased to two drachms, and given twice a-day 

 if required, being a much likelier dose to have a tonic operation, 

 and, in the words of Mr. Youattt, " sustain the system against the 



* Mr. ScvvcU's " Introductory Lecture," in Tni: Yktkkinarian for 1828, 

 t See Mr. Youatt's " Lectures," in 'J'jie Veterinarian lor 1832. 



