DICTIONARY OF THE VETERINARY ART. 257 



ries and glands. The glands under the jaw are named sub- 

 maxillary glands. 



Mediastinum. A duplicature of the membrane named 

 pleura, by which the cavity of the chest is divided into two 

 parts. 



Medicine. Mr. Clark, veterinary surgeon, of Edinburgh, 

 says, "Medicine is often given to the poor brutes unneces- 

 sarily, and, of course, mischievously. If a man, or horse, be 

 in a state of health, what more is required, or how can they be 

 rendered better ? Health is the more proper state of the ani- 

 mal body, and it is not in the poxoer of medicine to make it 

 better, or to preserve it in the same state" 



Dr. White says, " The custom of giving medicines too 

 frequently is a bad one ; the constitution adapts itself to it, 

 which circumstance renders medicine inefficacious when 

 necessary, or, at least, it greatly reduces the effects." 



If a horse is in health, the proper way to promote it is to 

 proportion the food to the labor. 



Dr. White continues, "Medicines are given to the horse 

 under the title of alteratives. These alteratives are composed 

 of antimony, mercury, sulphur, nitre, aloes, salts" [generally 

 altering bad for xoorse.) 



Mr. Clark says, " that sulphur not only opens the body, 

 but the skin also, and therefore should be used with cau- 

 tion, as horses are very apt to catch cold on too liberal a use 

 of it." 



Salts bring on great sickness, and sometimes violent purg- 

 ing, and, instead of promoting the secretions, occasion great 

 dryness of the skin. 



" Aloes given in small quantities, by way of alteratives, 

 and too frequently repeated, weaken the stomach, so as to 

 bring on a lax, or what is called a washy habit of body. 



" Antimony should always be rejected, if coarse and black, 

 like gunpowder." (See White's Farriery, p. 559.) 



The above author says, "It is amazing what different kinds 

 of trash is forced down horses' throats : the following is a 

 striking instance : A gentleman, in London, was greatly 

 33 



