218 STABLE ECONOMY. 



It is anti-febrile. To the human patient it is administered as 

 a febrifuge.] 



As an article of constant or frequent use it ought to be 

 abolished. In large quantities, it weakens a working-horse 

 precisely in the same way that heated oats and musty hay 

 weaken him. In smaller, but more frequent doses, it injures 

 the kidneys [by reaction when omitted], and renders them 

 unable to throw off all the superfluous and watery portion of 

 the blood ; this, when not evacuated in the shape of urine, is 

 deposited in the legs, the sheath, and other parts ; hence the 

 constant use of nitre ultimately produces the evils it is at first 

 given to cure. An occasional dose to a half-worked, full-fed 

 horse may do good, particularly when he is to stand idle on 

 the following day. When the grain or hay is not very good, 

 and is apt to excite diabetes, no diuretic medicines should 

 ever be given but under the directions of a professional man. 

 A veterinarian was once called to examine some horses that 

 were sadly emaciated from the staling evil. The hay was 

 bad ; but it was changed, and other measures taken to arrest 

 the disease. They appeared to have the desired effect 

 always till Sunday, when all the horses became nearly as ill 

 as ever. At last it was discovered that the man put two 

 pounds of nitre among the boiled food every Saturday night. 

 This explained the repeated relapse. The fellow pretended 

 to be a foreman — to know, not only his own business, but also 

 something about the veterinarian's. 



ASSIMILATION OF THE FOOD. 



By the assimilation of the food, I mean its conversion into 

 a part of the living body. This is effected by a series of 

 processes, each of which is preparatory to that which follows 

 it. Most of them have been named. 



Prehension is the act by which the food is taken into the 

 mouth. At pasture the grass is seized by the lips, com- 

 pressed into a little bundle, and placed between the front 

 teeth, which separate it from the ground, by incision, aided 

 by a sudden jerk of the head. In stable-feeding, the lips and 

 teeth are used in nearly the same way. They seize the food 

 and place it within reach of the tongue, but they produce no 

 change upon it. The front teeth have less to do in stable 

 than in field-feeding, but in neither case do they masticate 

 the food. Prehension of fluids is performed by sucking. 

 The lips are dipped in the water, and the cavity of the mouth 



