80 THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 



The state of the bowels must be attended to ; and, although it 

 might not be proper to excite peristaltic action by drastic cathar- 

 tics, yet if the case needs it, we may venture on a mild aperient, 

 such, for example, as the following : — 



Glauber salts 6 ounces, 



Powdered gentian, 3 drachms. 



Warm water sufficient. 



Provided the bowels do not respond at the end of twelve 

 or sixteen hours, the dose may be repeated. In the mean 

 time, however, it will be proper to administer injections of 

 salt and water. During the whole stage of the disease, the 

 food must be light, composed of slops, gruel, scalded shorts, or 

 linseed tea. 



During a practice of nine years in the city of Boston, we have 

 had but few cases of pure pleurisy ; there are cases enough, no 

 doubt, but still other diseases of the respiratory apparatus are 

 more common among the horses of New England. The infre- 

 quency of such cases may be accounted for from the fact, we be- 

 lieve, that it often presents itself in a chronic form, and as the sub- 

 ject is not actually incapacitated for work, he goes on, from day to 

 day, until the owner becomes convinced that all is not right, and 

 not until then does he seek advice ; the case has then assumed 

 a complicated form. The following is a case in point. In the 

 month of May, 1853, a dark roan gelding, the property of a 

 gentleman residing at Cambridgeport, was put up at a stable in 

 Roxbur} r , for sale ; the horse remained there about a week ; 

 nothing was observed about him that looked like disease, except 

 that he breathed " a little short at the flanks." On the 2d 

 day of June, the horse was loaned to a gentleman to drive, with 

 an understanding that if the animal suited, the party would pur- 

 chase him. He was driven but a short distance when it was dis- 

 covered that something ailed the horse ; the driver noticed that 

 his charge panted hard at the flanks, and required urging to get 

 him beyond a walk. He was put up at the nearest stable, and 

 the next day our attention was called to him. We found the 

 patient with a quick, wiry pulse ; skin hot ; breath fetid ; the 

 flanks heaving ; slight cough ; and a discharge of thick, yellow 

 matter, streaked with a dark-colored fluid. He evinced great 



