222 DICTIONARY OF THE VETERINARY ART. 



nous expansion, which divides the cavity of the chest from 

 the abdomen, or belly. 



Diarrh(ea, or Purging. In Professor Percival's lectures 

 on diarrhoea, he states that " for the majority of cases brought 

 to us, we are indebted to the groom, the farrier, and stable- 

 keeper, who used to kill many horses by literally purging 

 them to death. Thirty years ago, an ounce and a half or two 

 ounces of aloes, occasionally combined with one or two 

 drachms of calomel, composed the common purge ; and even 

 now, among these people, nine, ten, and eleven drachms are 

 by no means unusual doses. Young horses, on their first 

 arrival in the metropolis, are all physicked ; they have given 

 to them, indiscriminately, doses of aloes, every one of which 

 would be sufficient to purge two of them ; the result is, that 

 the light-carcassed, irritable subject is carried off at once by 

 superpurgation, while another, or two, may linger in misery 

 and pain from a dysentery that will end in gangrene and 

 death, or be rendered more speedily fatal by the doses of 

 opium, or some other powerful astringent,* which are so per- 

 niciously resorted to on these occasions. There is another 

 not uncommon cause of this disease, and that is continuous 

 and excessive exertion. After having been ridden for many 

 hours, a horse will often express irritation in the bowels, by 

 frequently voiding his excrement, which will be found to be 



# Suppose the groom, farrier, &c, do give opium, are they not following 

 in the footsteps of their great prototype, viz., Allopathy ? By-the-by, Cul- 

 len tells us, " that opium is a narcotic and sedative, and that the natural 

 tendency of such articles is to depress the vital powers, and deprive all 

 parts of sensibility." He supposed, that when a sedative was applied in a 

 moderate dose, the " vis medicatrix " took the alarm in order to throw off 

 the noxious application, and that thus arose those peculiar symptoms of 

 increased action ; but when the dose was given as above, " in fatal doses," 

 he contended that the conservative poAver of the system was silenced, and 

 unable to offer any salutary resistance. From this we infer, that if you cut 

 off a horse's tail it proves salutary, and excites ; but if you knock his brains 

 out, it proves sedative. The true plan is to give antispasmodics, combined 

 with charcoal and slippery elm, remove obstructions, invite action to the sur- 

 face, &c. This is the true effect to be produced, and the only justifiable 

 one. 



