1 12 PRE-DISPOSITION TO DISEASES. [BOOK I. 



errors of respectable veterinary surgeons in par- 

 ticular. On no other point, throughout these 

 labours, do we so much desire to be rightly under- 

 stood, as on this one of the absorbents, and ab- 

 sorption altogether * ; for it is only when this 

 function takes place with regularity that health can 

 be preserved : when it is disordered, our business 

 is to restore it, too much or too little being equally 

 productive of a disposition to diseases, though op- 

 posite ones. An indolent or an impoverished ab- 

 sorption requires our care no less than a too rapid 

 or feverish performance of this function : the flaim 

 and cathartic medicines reduce the latter kind of 

 symptoms ; a generous mash, tonic alteratives, and 

 good grooming, are the best restoratives of a languid 

 system. Pulsation is the test of either state of de- 

 rangement ; and he who is the cleverest at discover- 

 ing, by this prognostic, what is going on in the 

 system, will always make the most humane, as well 

 1 as the most successful, horse-doctor. 



51. Towards its termination, the colon makes a 

 short turn, as if to prevent the too easy escape of 

 the dung into the rectum, or arse-gut, without an 

 effort of nature to straighten the curve at that 

 place ; as we see it performed when the animal 

 strains the part, while contracting the lower muscles 



* Generally termed " the absorbent system," and, until lately, wholly 

 unattended to in veterinary practice ; Gibson, in his lengthy particu- 

 larities respectin the horse, not having once mentioned the lacteals 

 (as if they existed not), and contenting himself with just loosely 

 naming " lymphatics," at page 55 of his first volume. 



