CONGESTION. 101 



The horse should be bled until he faints or drops ! Both the 

 neck veins should be opened at once, and the fulness of the 

 stream, or the quickness with which it is taken, is almost as 

 important as the quantity. After purging is effected by large 

 doses of aloes." He then recommends foxglove and tartar 

 emetic in doses of a drachm each, three or four times a day. 

 " The head should be blistered : rowels and setons give use- 

 less pain, for the horse is either cured or dead before they 

 perceptibly begin to act." (See Youatt, p. 105.) 



It is surprising that such a man as Mr. Youatt could not 

 perceive the reason why " the treatment is too often unsuc- 

 cessful." The means recommended are calculated to kill, 

 not to cure : hence, if the disease did not carry the animal 

 off, the treatment would. Why draw away the blood from 

 the poor animal, when all that is needed is to give it equal 

 distribution, and rid the stomach and alimentary canal of 

 offending matter? Dr. Hinds observes, " In all ordinary cases 

 of staggers and congestion of the brain, simply opening the 

 bowels will effect a cure, nine cases out of ten. I have 

 known violent cases of staggers cured by injections and a 

 dose of physic." 



The whole train of maladies, viz., staggers, &c, can be 

 traced to acute or chronic indigestion, or an obstructed sur- 

 face, accompanied often by the retention of a great mass of 

 indigestible food in the stomach and intestines. How on 

 earth bloodletting can relieve the stomach and intestines of 

 this load, we should like to know. Bloodletting may give a 

 momentary respite to the distended vessels of the brain, in 

 apoplexy, and the animal appear relieved ; but, by destroying, 

 in a certain degree, the vital energies, it also admits of a still 

 further reaction, which is favored by the pressure of the 

 atmosphere on the extreme vessels of the external surface ; 

 and thus the advocates of bleeding find a repetition of the 

 practice still more necessary than at the commencement. Dr. 

 White says, " If no relief is obtained by abstracting seven or 

 eight quarts of blood, take away five quarts more ! " Now, it 

 is evident, that if we were to draw out all the blood, the 



