138 DISEASES OF INDIGESTION : WORMS. [BOOK I. 



for low fever); and the practice of administering 

 bitter medicines, that are supposed to kill the 

 worms, is only successful on account of their re- 

 storing the tone of the stomach, and by supplying 

 to the intestines a congenial stimulus in the place 

 of bile. This was the case with Mr. White's 

 statement, in vol. i. p. 170, where he says, " I have 

 sometimes succeeded in destroying worms by giving 

 aloes, one dram and a half, every morning until 

 purging was produced." That is to say, " the 

 horse became well ;" but whether he had any worms 

 to be destroyed is another question ; and then, if 

 a dram any a half would succeed sometimes, I 

 should apprehend a large dose (as eight drams, 

 his favourite quantity) would more inevitably have 

 poisoned all the worms his horses may have had, 

 of whichsoever kind they might be ; but this latter 

 mode, as will be perceived, though more destructive 

 of any thing, would not have acted as a tonic re- 

 storative on the stomach and intestines, like small 

 repeated doses. We, however, who are men of no 

 fashion, generally have found those kind of attacks 

 accompany a repetition of irregular feeding ; that 

 is to say, very little one day, very much another ; 

 now all, now none ; the attack varying in degree, 

 and changing from simple obstruction to the in- 

 flammatory, as the animal may or may not have 

 been allowed sufficient water with his food. 



49. To supply this deficiency, in some measure, 

 does the coccum, or blind gut, seem to have been 

 placed at the termination of the small intestines. 



