68 



PHYSIC. 



four or live assistants could be collected ere he administered the requisite 

 medicine, the duties of the day could never be discharged. 



THE QHIET METHOD OF GIVING A BALL. 



The physic being introduced into the mouth, the person who has 

 undertaken to deliver it should on no account esteem his business 

 finished, and thereon leave the stable. He should proceed to the left 

 side of the horse and watch the neck. In that position, when the animal 

 swallows, any substance can be seen to travel down the gullet; this 

 proof having been witnessed, the building may be quitted with a safe 

 conscience. The illustration of this fact was drawn on the wood cor- 

 rectly ; but the artist did not make proper allowance for the transfer of 

 his sketch by the engraver. The last process has made that which was 

 originally on the left side of the neck appear as on the right side of the 

 body. 



Drinks or draughts are not in favor with the majority of veterinary 

 surgeons. Most practitioners urge, in justification of their dislike to 

 such a form of medicine, that solutions are attended with danger — being 

 apt, when administered, to pass into the trachea, and thus to flow upon 

 the lungs. Admiw^ing this objection, it does not decide the question ; 

 for the advocates of solid physic can possess small experience if they 

 are to be told that balls have proved injurious by also entering the for- 

 bidden channel. Likewise, that when the popular form of physic has 

 grown hard, much harm has been occasioned by the mass becoming im- 



