THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 129 



horse's stomach in the act of s\v allowing. The bots attach them- 

 selves to the horse's stomach, and are sometimes, though less 

 frequently, found in the first intestine. The number varies con- 

 siderably ; sometimes there are not half a dozen, at others they 

 exceed a hundred. They are fixed by the small end to the inner 

 coat of the stomach, to which they attach themselves by means 

 of two hooks." 



Cure. — It has been remarked that no effectual remedy has 

 ever been discovered for the cure of bots. Yet we venture to 

 say that, in nine cases out of ten, if the animal be permitted to 

 run a short time at grass, when the bot has attained its full 

 growth, and is capable of exercising an independent life, it will 

 detach itself from the stomach and pass off with the excre- 

 ment. "We have frequently brought away large quantities of 

 bots during the administration of the following articles, and we 

 do not hesitate to recommend them as safe and efficient. As a 

 vermifuge, they are unrivalled ; at the same time they restore 

 the tone of the digestive organs. 



Compound for the Expulsion of Bots. 



Powdered male fern, 2 ounces, 



" poplar bark, 4 " 



White mustard seed, 2 " 



Common salt, 6 " 



Sulphur, 3 " 



Powdered aloes, 1 ounce. 



Mix ; divide into eighteen powders, and give one, night and 

 morning, in the food. 



The animal should have a daily allowance of green food if the 

 season permits. 



The author of Hippopathology writes, "It has been conjec- 

 tured that bots might prove serviceable to the animal by aiding 

 the cuticular coat in the trituration of the food. That Nature 

 should have created an animal, and designed it as an inhabitant 

 of the stomach of another animal, without some good, but, I sus- 

 pect, unknown end, I think, in unison with others, highly im- 

 probable — irreconcilable with her other beautiful and more 

 readily explained operations ; I am, however, for my own part, 

 unable to draw up the curtain which is here interposed between 

 fact and design. 



