AND niAEMACOrCEIA. 437 



BARLEY. — Hordei Semina. This is sometimes used as food 

 for horses ; but is less fit for that purpose than oats or beans. I 

 have known it tried as a substitute for tlie former, when it was 

 found difficult of digestion, and productive of many complaints.* 

 If horses, however, be accustomed to it gradually, it proves very 

 nutritious and useful. 



Boiled barley is recommended by Gibson as nutritious food, 

 easy of digestion, and fit for sick or convalescent horses. Barley- 

 water, sweetened, may be found an useful drink in fevers, or may 

 be employed as a vehicle for cooling medicine, such as nitre. It 

 is made by boiling pearl-barley for two or three hours in water. 

 A nutritious gruel may be made with barley-meal, though 

 perhaps inferior to that made with oatmeal or wheat fiour. (See 

 Restoratives and Gruel.) I have been informed, that Mr. 

 Rogers, a coach proprietor at Southampton, fed his horses for 

 some time with barley which had been soaked in water from 

 twenty to thirty hours, and chopped straw ; sometimes, I be- 

 lieve, he put a little hay in the rack for them. 



Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, a celebrated agriculturist, tried the ex- 

 periment of feeding his horses upon steeped barley, which was 

 kept until It began to sprout, and found that his horses thi'ove 

 uncommonly well upon it, and also that this species of provender 

 was much less expensive than oats. However, the money saved 

 by this mode of feeding was afterwards lost in another way ; for 

 the Excise, hearing of ]Mr. Coke's experiments, forced him to 

 pay the malt duti/. 



BARYTA. — Terra Ponderosa. Barytes. This mineral has 

 not yet been discovered in an uncombined state. It Is usually 

 found united either with sulphuric acid or with carbonic acid ; 

 from which combinations result the sulphate of barytes or heaoy 

 spar, and the carbonate of l)arytes, or xoitherite, so denominated 

 alter its discoverer, Dr. Withering. Both these substances are 

 used for making the muriate of barytes, the only preparation of 

 this mineral in general use. It Is a medicine of very uncertain 

 power, and should be used with the greatest caution. jNI, Dupuy 

 gave 9 drachms 36 grains to a glandered mare, of which dose 

 she shortly after expired. Mr. William Percival made some ex- 

 periments with barytes upon glandered horses, the results of 

 which were various, and sliowed that, although in some cases 

 possessed of considerable efficacy, it is not altogether a medicine 

 to be relied on. Some of the horses treated by Mr. Percival 

 were destroyed, without their having received any perceptible 

 benefit from the bai'y tes. Others were completely cured by its 

 administration ; and not a few died from the effects of an over- 



* Barley is a very inflammatory diet for horses, and apt to induce grease 

 and swelled legs, but when infused in water till it begins to germinate, its in- 

 flammatory properties appear to be removed. — Ed. 



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