35^ ON GLANDERS. 



eafieft, cheapeft, and that which never fails in 

 the moft defperate cafes, after every other 

 remedy has failed, is — the collar-maker's 

 KNIFE — In nine cafes out of ten, that is per- 

 haps ehgible ; but the cafe of a valuable or 

 favourite horfe, or that of mere curiofity, and 

 a laudable attempt at improvement, may juftify 

 an experiment. There is a natural alliance 

 between ignorance and cruelty ; and the old 

 farriers had a moft cmel pretended cure for 

 this difeafe ; according to Blundevil, " they 

 " twined out the pith of the horfe's back, with 

 " a long wire thruft up into his head, and fo 

 " into his neck and back." It has long feemed 

 probable to me, that there is great analogy 

 between glanders and fyphilis, and that brute 

 patients under the former difeafe confirmed, 

 ought to be treated like men in a venereal 

 he61ic. Mercurial and antimonial alterants, 

 agglutinants, gums, woods, turpentines, opium, 

 refloratives, particularly bark. What would be 

 the effe6l of the famous noftrum of Paracelfus,. 

 opium joined with mercury ? Or a courfe of 

 fublimate continued for a time, the favourite 

 medicine of Boyle, Boerhaave, and Darwin? 

 What of the gafes (if that could be afforded) 

 of eleftricity in repeated percuflions through 

 the head and breaft ? In moft attempts at cure 

 that I have feen or heard of, the ulcers have 

 been deterged and healed, but temporarily, 



the 



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