26 HORSES AND ROADS. 



favourites. A horse first weakened by a drastic 

 purge, and then tortured by one of these infernal 

 inventions, is more injured than if he had 

 continued at hard work instead of having his 

 ' rest.' A modern professor of veterinary science 

 says : ' Let all gentlemen discharge the veterinary 

 surgeon who proposes to blister the legs of their 

 horses. The author has beheld hundreds of blisters 

 applied to the legs, but he cannot remember one 

 instance in which such applications were productive 

 of the slightest good.' Youatt said : ' Agriculturists 

 should bring to their stables the common sense 

 which directs them in the usual concerns of life.' 

 Youatt wrote half a century ago, and for farmers ; 

 yet it is doubtful whether things have not got worse 

 since then, in spite of his advice. Mayhew says that 

 the administration of three or four bran mashes is in 

 general a sufficient purge ; and he further says that, 

 ' during the years he was in active practice, he does 

 not remember to have given a dose of aloes ' (pre- 

 sumably only then on an emergency) ' that the 

 symptoms did not afterwards cause him to regret 

 the administration. They are at present chiefly 

 employed in accordance ivith the dictates of routine,^ 

 Eoutine seems to be having a long innings in 

 most respects as regards the horse. After long and 

 energetic representations and arguments on the part 

 of Mr. Flower, some of the horse proprietors in 

 London finally discovered, upon trial, that their 

 horses could actually do more work without bearing 

 reins — this was a severe blow to routine — and now 



