DISEASES OF HORSES. 



similar treatment with the one already prescribed is necessary, and 

 as soon as the first symptoms are abated, give laxatives. In all 

 these cases large quantities of linseed tea should be horned down, 

 the back should be raked and clysters thrown up, blood should also 

 be taken away plentifully. As a preventive to this latter mode of 

 poisoning, whenever mineral agents are used, it is prudent every 

 five or six days to stop a while, and then recommence, by which 

 the constitution will part with the previous quantity. 



41. Salivation is also another mode of poisoning, and though not 

 equally injurious to the stomach, it often proves distressing, and 

 sometimes fatal. Whenever, therefore, mercurials are given, care, 

 fully watch the gums, and as soon as they look red, and the horse 

 quids his hay, give him a mild purge instead of his mercurial. 



42. Vegetable poisons also inflame the stomach, but by no means 

 in an equal degree with the mineral poisons, nor is it supposed that 

 it is the inflammation they raise that proves destructive, but by an 

 effect communicated through the stomach to the nervous system. 

 Digitalis purpurea or foxglove, taxus baccata or yew, ananthe 

 crocata or water dropwort, cicuta virosa or water hemlock, phellvn- 

 drium aquaticum or water parsley, conium maculatum or common 

 hemlock, are all poisonous in a high degree to horses, and may be 

 taken accidentally by the animal as food, or given injudiciously as 

 medicine. Nicotiana, or tobacco, and the vegetable acid of vinegar, 

 are also poisonous, and are sometimes productive of injurious con- 

 sequences by over-doses, when intended as remedies. It is little 

 known that a pint of strong vinegar has destroyed a horse. As we 

 cannot remove the matters from the stomach, we must endeavour 

 to neutralize their effects, by acids and demulcents, as oil, butter, 

 &c. Thus, when narcotics have been taken, a drachm of sul- 

 phuric acid or oil of vitriol may be given in a quart of ale ; or six 

 ounces of vinegar, with six of gin, and a quart of ale, may be tried. 



43. Stomach staggers. This peculiar complaint, which is even 

 yet but little understood, appears dependent on a particular state 

 of stomach, acting on particular foods ; and not on what is taken 

 in, acting on the stomach, as was supposed by Coleman, White, 

 and others. From later communications of White, he also now ap- 

 pears to consider it as originating in " a particular state of stomach." 

 Elaine appears always to have characterized it as " a specific inflam- 

 mation of the stomach." It appears among horses of every descrip- 

 tion, and at grass as well as in the stable, and there is reason to 

 think it epidemic, as it is prevalent in some seasons more than 



