ALTERATIVES. 77 



most general use of any ; but its properties in this respect are 

 much overrated. It is a very common practice to put a roll 

 of brimstone into the pans from whence dogs drink their 

 water ; the impregnation of which, by means of the sulphur, 

 IS expected to keep the animals in health : but so completely 

 insoluble in water is brimstone in this state, that a roll of it 

 so kept would not lose ten grains of its weight in ten years, 

 nor would it become in the least altered in its quality. 



Sulphur in powder, or flour of brimstone, as it is termed, 

 is, however, more active ; but even in this form it often passes 

 through the bowels nearly unchanged. It proves, in other 

 instances, slightly purgative. In one disease, however, it 

 seldom fails to do good, even unaccompanied by any thing 

 besides, which is the piles, to which complaint many dogs 

 are very subject. In conjunction with other alteratives of 

 the cooling, cleansing kind, it proves also useful in mangy 

 eruptions, canker, &c. ; and I am disposed to think, that 

 one part of supertartrate of potash (^cream of tartar), with 

 two parts of sulphur, forms the best alterative that can be 

 given in these cases. Externally applied, the benefits of 

 sulphur are much more apparent, and are too well known to 

 need enumeration. 



The cases that require the use of alteratives are numeious -. 

 when judiciously given, they keep dogs cool, and obviate the 

 ill effects of improper feeding and close confinement. In 

 sporting dogs they often prove very useful by removing their 

 useless fat, assisting their wind, and purifying their juices* ; 

 for no dog will hunt well whose secretions are tainted by 

 mange or other eruptions. Alteratives prevent the accu- 

 mulation of milk, as well as the coagulating or coreing of it 

 in the teats of bitches. In short, old mange, cankered ears, 

 chronic coughs, swelled glands, and all diseases of long 



* Modern pathology allows no primary vitiation of the blood : but whe- 

 ther this theory may not have been carried too far by the partisans of John 

 Hunter, may be a matter of doubt. However, I have no alternative, in a 

 domestic and popular treatise, but to excite ideas that are generally familiar, 

 and to use language in common acceptation. 



