-60 INDICATIONS OF PULSE AND DUNG. [BOOK II. 



vender being made gradually, and then of good 

 quality. 



In very bad cases, the return to full health and 

 vigour will be slow, and a relapse is to be dreaded, 

 as a fresh attack would prove much more obstinate 

 than the first. The clung, by its quantity, consist- 

 ence, regularity, and general appearance, will af- 

 ford the best means of judging when the bowels are 

 completely cleared of their offensive contents ; for 

 it not unfrequently happens that several tolerable 

 stools may be procured by the help of medicine, 

 and yet some lumps, replete with danger, remain 

 behind. The pulse, that great criterion of health 

 or disease, by dint of low living, may have regained 

 its natural state, and so remain steadily for a toler- 

 ably long period : but watching the dung for a day 

 or two will corroborate that main indication of 

 health, or by its irregularity dispel an ill-founded 

 reliance on the completeness of the cure. Yet will 

 the administering of purgatives, or even alteratives, 

 of aloes in particular, be found full of danger, as 

 tending to irritate the bowels anew. The same may 

 be said of all stimulants whatever, whether applied 

 externally or given in the form of cordials, notwith- 

 standing the animal may evince signs of returning 

 pain, and these be ascertained by the correspond- 

 ing symptoms of low pulse, warm legs and ears, to 

 arise from spasmodic or flatulent colic only. For 

 these returning pains are usually occasioned by the 

 soft kind of regimen just recommended, to which 

 the patient may have been subjected during this ill- 



