412 MEDICINE. 



" painter's colic" is a circumstance of too frequent occurrence — the occasional dread- 

 ful pains, and the ravenous appetite extending to everything that comes in the way 

 of the animal. Active purg^adves followed by opium are the most etfectual remedies. 



The .'Icetaie of Lead, Plumhi Aceias. — Sugar of lead is seldom given externally to 

 the horse, but is used as a coUyrium for inflannnation of the eyes. 



The Liquor Flumbi Subacetaiis, or Goulard's Extract, or, as it usfd to lie termed 

 at the Veterinary College, the Jqua J'egdo, is a better collyrium, and advantageously 

 used in external and superficial inflammation, and particularly the inflammation that 

 remains after the application of a blister. 



Li.ME was formerly sprinkled over cankered feet and greasy heels, but there are less 

 jiainful caustics, and more effectual absorbents of moisture. Lime-water is rarely 

 used, but the Chloride of Lime is exceedingly valuable. Diluted with twenty times 

 its quantity of water, it helps to form the poultice applied to every part from which 

 there is the slightest oflfensive discharge. The foetid smell of fistulous withers, poll- 

 evil, canker, and ill-conditioned wounds, is immediately removed, and the ulcers are 

 more disposed to heal. When mangy horses are dismissed as cured, a washing with 

 the diluted chloride will remove any infection that may lurk about them, or which 

 they may carry from the place in which they have been confined. One pint of the 

 chloride mixed with three gallons of water, and brushed over the walls and manger 

 and rack of the foulest stable, will completely remove all infection. Professor Mor- 

 ton, very properly, says that the common practice of merely whitewashing the walls 

 serves only to cover the infectious matter, and perhaps to preserve it for an indefinite 

 length of time, so that when the lime scales off, disease may be again engendered by 

 the exposed virus. The horse furniture worn by a glandered or mangy animal will 

 be effectually purified by the chloride. Internally administered, it seems to have little 

 or no power. 



Liniments are oily applications of the consistence of a thick fluid, and designed 

 either to soothe an inflamed surface, or, by gently stimulating ihe skin, to remove 

 deeper-seated pain or inflammation. As an emollient liniment, one composed of half 

 an ounce of extract of lead and four ounces of olive oil will be useful. For sprains, 

 old swellings, or rheumatism, two ounces of hartshorn, the same quantity of cam- 

 phorated spirit, an ounce of oil of turpentine, and half an ounce of laudanum, may 

 be mixed together; or or an ounce of camphor may l)e dissolved in four ounces of 

 sweet oil, to which an ounce of oil of turpentine may be afterwards added. A little 

 powdered cantharides, or tincture of cantharides, or mustard powder, will render 

 either of these more powerful, or convert it into a liquid blister. 



Linseed. — An infusion of linseed is often used instead of water, for the drink of 

 the horse with sore-throat or catarrh, or disease of the urinary organs or of the bowels. 

 A pail containing it should be slung in the stable or loose box. Thin gruel, however, 

 is preferable ; itls as bland and soothing, and it is more nutritious. Linseed meal 

 forms the best poultice for almost every purpose. 



Magnesia. — The sulphate of magnesia, or Epsom Salts, should be used only in 

 promoting tiie purgative eflect of clysters, or, in repeated doses of six or eight 

 ounces, gently to open the bowels nt the commencement of fever. Some doubt, 

 however, attends the latter practice ; for the dose must occasionally be thrice repeated 

 before it will act, and then, although safer than aloes, it may produce too much irri- 

 tation in the intestinal canal, especially if the fever is the precursor of inflammation 

 of tlie lungs. 



Mashes constitute a very important part of horse-provender, whether in sickness 

 or health. A mash rriven occasionally to a horse that is otherwise fed on dry mevX 

 prevents him from becoming dangerously costive. To the over-worked and tired 

 horse, nothintr is so refreshing as a warm mash with liis usual allowance of corn in it 

 The art of getting a horse into apparent condition for sale, or giving him a round and 

 plinni) appearance, consists principally in tlie frequent repetition of mashes, and 

 from their easiness of digestion and the mild nutriment wliich they afford, as w-ell as 

 their laxative eflect, they form the principal diet of tlie sick horse. 



Thev are made by pmiring l)oiling water on bran, and stirring it well, and then 

 cov( ring it over until it is sufliciently cool for the horse to eat. If in the heat of 

 stimniei^a cold mash is preferred, it should, nevertheless, be made with hot water, 

 and then sutTered to remain until it is cold. This is not always sufliciently attended 

 to by the groom, who is not aware that the cfiicacy of the mash depends principallj 



