PHYSIC. 



8h 



A BOTTLE CONTAINING OIL OF CANTHAKIBES. 



seem as transparent as that which is represented in the accompanying 

 illustration. 



It is a common custom with most 

 veterinarians to purge the horse before 

 they blister its legs. The intention is to 

 remove any lurking irritability out of 

 the animal's system ; but such irritability 

 will most probably be provoked by their 

 coarse and potent blistering agents ; there- 

 fore, a purgative, by increasing the de- 

 bility, is only likely to render the quad- 

 ruped more sensitive to outward impres- 

 sions. A nice "freshener" is embodied, 

 to the eye of reason, in a drastic pur- 

 gative, followed by an active irritant 

 applied to a most sensitive part of the 

 body 1 



Whenever a blister is adopted, rather 

 too little than too much oil should be 

 used. Enough to permeate the hair and 

 reach the skin is imperative ; but the 



action rather depends on the amount of friction which accompanies the 

 agent than on the quantity of the vesicatory that may be employed. 

 The friction should be regulated by the condition of the surface on 

 which the oil has to act, and all adjacent tender places, as the points of 

 flexion in joints, parts where the skin is thin or is thrown into crevices, 

 should be previously covered with a layer of simple cerate, after the 

 method exemplified in the left-hand illustration on the next page, wherein 

 the back of the pastern is exhibited as thus protected. 



After the part has been rubbed for ten minutes in summer, and a 

 quarter of an hour during winter, all oil may be wiped off the hair. Its 

 presence there can do no good ; but as oil becomes more liquid with the 

 continuance of warmth, the heat of the body may cause the blistering 

 agent to run on to parts which it is not desirable to subject to its 

 action. 



After the horse has been blistered, it is customary to tie up the head 

 and put around the animal's neck a kind of rude apparatus denominated, 

 but wherefore the author cannot tell, "a cradle." This last instrument 

 is designed to prevent the creature from gnawing the blistered surface. 

 No such act will, however, be indulged where the agent employed is 

 proportioned to the sensitiveness of the quadruped ; but it is the agony 

 produced by the effect of undue stimulation which generates the mad- 



