ON PHYSICING HOUNDS IN GENERAL. 97 



SECTION SIXTH. 



ON PHYSICING HOUNDS IN GENERAL. 



We are now about to treat upon the practice of 

 physicing hounds, which is far from being the least 

 interesting topic embraced in kennel management, 

 and concerning which more different opinions perhaps 

 exist than upon any other subject connected with con- 

 dition. Food of the best quality, and properly ad- 

 ministered, added to a well regulated system of exer- 

 cise, is no doubt the main point to be attended to in 

 the management of not only fox-hounds, but all other 

 animals whose corporeal exertions are required to be 

 tried to the utmost of their abilities ; but unavailing 

 would this system of care and attention prove, with- 

 out the timely application of those medicinal auxiliaries, 

 without which the various channels of the body, or 

 secretions, would, from excess of stimuli, quickly be- 

 come overcharged and devoid of their proper and 

 natural tone. " It is the condition of the hound which 

 gives him the advantage over the animal he hunts," 

 says Colonel Cook, in his " Observations on Fox- 

 hunting." But how is this point of condition to be 

 attained ? Not by overloading his stomach with food, 

 and consequently his circulation and absorbents with 

 grossness, but by introducing as much and no more 

 nutriment than can be easily and thoroughly digested. 

 Of the feeding of hounds I have spoken sufficiently 

 in a former chapter, and shall content myself here 

 with making a few observations upon the medicine 

 which is considered necessary to be used in getting a 

 pack of fox-hounds into condition. Nearly all hunts- 



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