86 LAXATIVES AND PURGATIVES. 



possesses of lessening the action of the heart and arteries. Com- 

 mon salt is also a ready domestic puke for dogs: the half of a 

 small tea- spoonful being sufficient for one of a diminutive size ; a 

 tea-spoonful for a larger ; and a tea-spoonful and a half for the 

 largest : but it is apt to act violently, and is, therefore, not to be 

 recommended for such as are tender or delicate ; many such hav- 

 ing been destroyed by it. Greater objections even may be made 

 to Turpith mineral and crude antimony ; to both of which, how- 

 ever, sportsmen are apt to be very much attached, but without any 

 good reason, for both are very violent in their action : crude an- 

 timony is also uncertain. No possible good can be derived from 

 these drastics, except, Othello lilie, the poor dogs which take them 

 are afterwards to be loved " for the dangers they have passed." 

 Many are killed outright by them, and many more would share the 

 same fate, were it not that their poisonous emetic qualities are such 

 as often to cause them to be rejected by the stomach almost im- 

 mediately they are taken. It may be proper to observe, that where 

 calomel, or any of the heavy metallic substances are given to dogs, 

 it should not be done in liquids ; for, by falling to the bottom of 

 the vessel, they escape being taken. Mixed up with butter, or 

 enclosed between two thin slices of meat, dogs may often be de- 

 ceived to take medicines without force, particularly when the mat- 

 ter mixed is tossed to them ; by which they catch it without smell- 

 ing it : for so keen is their scenting quality, that otherwise, they 

 will be very apt to detect the attempted deception ; and some will 

 even be timid for a long time afterwards of receiving any thing 

 offered by the hands. 



Laxatives and Purgatives. 



These evacuants are both preventive and curative of disease : 

 they are valuable alteratives, and active immediate agents in acute 

 affections. By opening the bowels, we remove a frequent cause of 

 irritation to the system ; and a very considerable source of skin af- 

 fections also ; for whatever is taken up superfluously by the system 

 is apt to find itself an outlet there. We thereby likewise prevent 



