134 ON PHYSIC. 



duce the effect. But to administer physic sufficiently 

 powerful to operate on a horse in training, prepared in 

 this way, and which horse it may be difficult to purge, 

 is rather a dangerous experiment. Nor is it done but 

 by those grooms who are not acquainted with the ad- 

 vantages to be derived, either by giving the physic, or 

 by preparing the horse differently. If the horse be 

 prepared, and the physic be given in the way I shall, 

 by and bye, have occasion to explain, a less quantity 

 of aloes than is usually given, will purge a strong horse 

 sufficiently well, and less danger will thereby be in- 

 curred. 



Another course of treatment which has at times 

 occasioned the death of a horse by physic, is, when a 

 groom has given a dose which may have remained in 

 the bowels of a horse for a couple, or perhaps even 

 three days, without producing any effect whatever, 

 (and this is not at all an extraordinary occurrence) : 

 the groom considers, from the period which has elapsed, 

 and the physic not having worked, that it was much 

 too weak, and finding that it has not operated on the 

 third day, he gives another dose, with an additional 

 portion of aloes in it ; and I have known it happen 

 that in the course of an hour or two after the second 

 dose has been given, the first has begun to operate ; 

 the consequence of which has been, the effect of the 

 second dose has been to continue the operation of 

 purging until the horse has died. 



Whenever a dose of physic has been given to a 

 horse, without producing the desired effect at the 



