408 AGRICULTURE AND THE HOESE. 



monitions, the exact time and extent of convales- 

 cence, it is difficult to ascertain ; for tlie horse has no 

 story to tell. He is dumb under suffering, and can 

 point out to no man the locality of his distress. How 

 keen his agony is, no one can understand ; for he bears 

 with apparent insensibility crushing accidents which 

 would paralyze his master, or leave him writhing in 

 unspeakable agony. The effect, also, of remedial agents 

 upon the horse, is a matter extremely difficult to inves- 

 tigate. We apply them : the relief comes ; and we are 

 too glad to trace it to our own efforts. But the veil is 

 still drawn, and the mystery is as impenetrable as ever. 

 I do not for a moment mean to doubt that soap and 

 aloes, singly or combined, that opium, and saltpetre, and 

 rosin, and ginger, and yellow-bark, and carbonate of 

 ammonia, and sal-prunella, and oil of juniper, and cam- 

 phor, and mustard, and oil of turpentine, and calomel, 

 and digitalis, and belladonna, and Colombo, and cassia, 

 and rhubarb, will cure anasarca, and fevers of various 

 kinds, and perhaps check glanders and farcy ; because I 

 am told so every day by those whose business it is to 

 administer all these powerful medicinal agents. But I 

 do know, that, in the human subject, such a pharmaco- 

 poeia has lost its ancient charm ; and an intelligent as- 

 sistance of Nature is now considered as important as 

 the heroic treatment adopted by our ancestors. And 

 I think I know one thing more ; and that is, that often- 

 times the difficulties created by medicine itself are as 

 hard to overcome as the disease it is proposed to re- 



