MATERIA MEDICA AND PHARMACOFCEIA. 397 



clnsses of medicines, especially to diuretics, alteratives, cordials, 

 and tonics. The sanction of such authorities is sufficient, it is 

 hoped, to obviate any objections that may be made to the com- 

 plexity of some of the formulae: and though the structure of the 

 human stomach and parts connected with it is so different from 

 those of the horse, as to render all analogical reasoning as to the 

 effect of medicine uncertain, yet we have been too precipitate, 

 perhaps, in dismissing it almost entirely from our consideration. 

 There are several medicines — such as sugar of lead, white vitriol, 

 &c. — which produce scarcely any effect on the horse, though of 

 consideral)le power in the human body ; yet it is not very impro- 

 bable that such medicines when given daily for some time in 

 small doses may produce a salutary effect, or even prove delete- 

 rious when largely and incautiously so emjjloyed. Arsenic has 

 been given to a horse in a dose of two drachms twice a day, for 

 several days, Avithout any considerable effect being produced ; 

 but in one case a sixth part of that quantity occasioned a fatal 

 inflammation of the stomach and bowels. When the stomach of 

 a horse is in a healthy state, it will bear an astonishing quantity 

 of medicines which in the human stomach are either poisonous 

 or powerful medicinal agents ; but in some diseased states of the 

 horse's stomach, which are not unfrequent, the same medicines, 

 or others commonly deemed innocent, will produce a powerful 

 and even fatal effect. ^Nlr. James Clark relates two cases of this 

 kind : — one of the horses died from taking a pint of vinegar, 

 and the other from taking a drench in which there was one 

 ounce of nitre and half an ounce of spirits of hartshorn. The 

 experiments that have Iteen made with a view to ascertain the 

 effect of medicine upon the horse should not be too confidently 

 depended upon, as they have generally been made on glandered 

 horses, or such as were incurably lame ; in wdiich case it may fairly 

 be presumed that the stomach was not in a healthy state. The 

 experiments that have been tried also to ascertain the effect of 

 tobacco on the horse afford a striking proof of the propriety of 

 attending to this circumstance. At the Veterinary College an 

 immense dose (it has been stated three pounds, in infusion) has 

 been given without any perceptible effect; at Exeter a much 

 smaller quantity, not exceeding, I believe, two or three ounces, 

 was infused in a quart of beer during the night, and in the 

 mornin> o-iven to a horse at one dose ; immediately after taking 

 it the animal fell down and died. 



From considerations of this kind, the author has been led to 

 believe, that simplicity of prescription in veterinary as well as 

 human medicine may be carried too far ; and that many useful 

 medicines, and combinations of medicines, or receijits, may be 

 improperly dismissed from the Veterinary Materia Medica and 

 Pharmacopoeia, were we to confide too much in the experiments 



