QUEER FARRIERY 221 



to run than any of his predecessors did, though 

 this is not great praise, so ignorant of the funda- 

 mental principles of scientific training were the 

 horse owners of about that period. 



Upon slight provocation horses were freely 

 bled, just as human beings were bled or " leeched " 

 less than a hundred years ago. Indeed we read 

 of one horse that was bled while in the hunting 

 field, owing to its having proved too restive for 

 its owner to ride with comfort (!) ; while another 

 was driven into a leech pond in order that the 

 leeches might suck off " the goodlie warts " with 

 which its belly and thighs were studded. 



So far as I have been able to ascertain, about a 

 century and a half ago the leech cure was deemed 

 quite the best for warts. Yet perhaps we are 

 wrong to think or to speak contemptuously of the 

 ignorance of our forefathers. Who can say that 

 in years to come our descendants may not speak 

 as contemptuously of us their ancestors because 

 we fired horses, and because we drenched them 

 with physic for various ailments ? 



Indeed there are already veterinary surgeons 

 who aver that to fire a horse under any circum- 

 stances is to commit a grave blunder, and that 

 firing as a general practice ought emphatically to 

 be abandoned. 



