HOW TO BUY AND SELL. 87 



ceased to affect him. Under the same category of spe- 

 cifics, I must include training, and sweating to get down 

 some of the superfluous fat; all trainers, however, know 

 that these processes may be overdone. Any deviation 

 from health is an UNSOUNDNESS. 



Until the effect of the medicine has passed off, there 

 is such a deviation from health, as is proved by the 

 altered pulse, the derangement of appetite, and general 

 dullness. Besides, owing to the great susceptibility of 

 the stomach of the horse, until the effect has ceased, the 

 ultimate result is uncertain; a dose, innocuous to one 

 horse, being often almost, if not quite, fatal to another. 



It is better understood now than it was formerly, that, 

 if the medicine, in proper quantities and at right times, 

 has been administered to the horse, either to qualify him 

 for work different from that to which he has been accus- 

 tomed, or to restore him to his usual condition; as, for 

 instance, on his return from grass, or on the commence- 

 ment of his preparation for racing or hunting, and, if 

 you can be satisfied that the dose was moderate, not in- 

 jurious in its properties, and administered to the horse 

 at the time when he was in a proper state of perpara- 

 tion to receive it, there is no great risk in purchasing 

 him. I should not have gone so lengthily into the sub- 

 ject of caution requisite in these cases, were it not that 

 many still adhere to the system of giving a ball consist- 

 ing of calomel (a medicine rarely necessary), and other 

 drugs sufficient to ruin all the horses in a whole troop 

 of cavalry. 



We cannot wonder, when we recollect the preposterous 

 doses that were habitually given to horses a few years ago, 

 that they often either destroyed the poor creatures, or 

 rendered them permanently decrepit. 



It does not occur every day that there is any necessity 

 to buy a horse when still under the effects of physic; yet 

 there are cases when, from rivalry among those who know 



