46 Management and Treatment of the Horse. 



six men to do it. As your man can throw a 

 horse by himself, if I give him good wages, it 

 will be a saving to me. I have no doubt, Captain, 

 that if the horse had come down with you, you 

 would have found a reason to account for it.'' 

 The veterinary surgeon prescribes medicine for 

 his patient, but he is not sure that the medicine 

 is given at proper times, or even given at all. 

 The chances are, if the horse is at all awkward, he 

 never gets it, and another great danger is that 

 the reasoning power of the groom who knows 

 nothing about the effects of drugs will lead him 

 to reason that if ten drops will do any good, forty 

 drops must do four times as much, so down go 

 four doses at once, and when the veterinary sur- 

 geon calls next day he either finds the horse dead 

 or the symptoms greatly aggravated. This is no 

 fiction. The author knew a case near Bath of a 

 great swell of a coachman, who was left a bottle 

 of Fleming's Tincture of Belladonna, with in- 

 structions to give ten drops per hour; the man 

 gave the horse 40 drops per hour, saying that if 

 ten drops would do any good, 40 drops should do 

 four times as much. The horse died from its 

 effect next day. 



Although, as a class, the groom is considered 

 ignorant and illiterate, yet there are many intel- 

 ligent men among them, men who have made the 

 horse the study of their lifetime ; therefore it is 

 not fair or just to call all grooms fools. There is 

 no doubt that if there were more facilities given 

 to the groom to study, we should find many 

 bright men amongst them. We send women to 



