170 THE MODKRX HORSE DOCTOR. 



decoction is preferable to a bolus. If there was much stupor or 

 vertigo present, I would bleed, but not largely. I would follow 

 up the first dose of aloes with half an ounce in solution every 

 twelve hour* until purgation came on ; we need be under no ap- 

 prehensions of super-purgation * in these cases. As soon as the 

 bowels are freely opened, apply a blister to the right side, and 

 repeat it every twelve hours. t It may be necessary to recur to 

 the venesection. 



" Now and then jaundice terminates fatally, and when it does so, 

 the event is commonly sudden ; probably some time has elapsed 

 before we are called in ; the bowels resist our first dose of medi- 

 cine ; in the mean time the pulse rises in spite of our recurrence 

 to the use of the lancet ; the skin and extreme parts become 

 cold; the animal grows senseless, and perhaps vertiginous, 'and 

 in that state suddenly drops and expires. On dissection, the 

 liver is found glutted with bile. I found the gland so prodigiously 

 distended in one case that the right lobe of it had burst, and dis- 

 played a considerable fissure. 



" Now and then we hear of cases of rupture of the liver. I 

 have never been present but at the one mentioned above, 

 myself, but I am told that large, heavy, draught horses are 



* Excessive evacuation. 



f Humanity calls upon us to dispense with blistering if it can possibly be 

 done. There is no necessity for resorting to such cruel means : when counter- 

 irritation is really needed — and we doubt if, under the circumstances, it could 

 accomplish any good — there are a number of agents that we can safely rely on 

 to fulfil that indication, without putting the animal to so great pain. 



The only method of getting rid of the bile, diffused in the system, at the 

 same time favoring its passage into the duodenum, and palliating all urgent 

 symptoms, consists in regulating the various secretions : this can only be done 

 on general principles, for the disease is not only manifest on the surfaces, but 

 also in the serum of the blood, in the urine and excretions generally, and in 

 nearly all the tissues of the body. Suppose jaundice results from indigestion ; 

 will a blister restore the integrity of the stomach ? 



The coloring matter, and other constituents of the bile, are known to exist 

 originally in the blood ; and it is reasonable to suppose that it may there accu- 

 mulate, producing a radical alteration of the latter fluid, a poisoning, as it has 

 been called. Do blisters purify the blood ? 



Then, again, if jaundice shall originate from an engorgement of bile, in con- 

 sequence of the closure of the outlets in the liver, — or the destruction of its 

 secreting cells, — in either case a blister is the very last thing we should think 

 of resorting to, much less repeat U every twelve hours. 



