PREPARATION FOR FAST WORK. 315 



is termed a ball. It should be soft and about the size and 

 shape of a pullet's egg. The operator stands before the horse, 

 who is generally unbound, and turned with his head out of the 

 stall, and a halter upon it. An assistant stands on the left 

 side, to steady the horse's head, and keep it from rising out 

 of the operator's reach. Sometimes he holds the mouth open, 

 and groouis generally need such aid. The operator seizes 

 the horse's tongue in his left hand, draws it a little out, and to 

 one side, and places his little linger fast upon the under jaw ; 

 with the right hand he carries the ball smartly along the roof 

 of the mouth, and leaves it at the root of the tongue. The 

 mouth is closed, and the head held, till the ball is seen de- 

 scending the gullet on the left side. When loath to swallow, 

 a little water may be offered, and it will carry the ball before it. 



Some grooms are sad bunglers at this operation. Some 

 can not do it at all ; many not without the use of a balling- 

 iron, and none of them can do it handsomely by any means. 

 I have seen the tongue severely injured, half torn out of the 

 horse's mouth ; and many horses are so much alarmed and in- 

 jured by a bad operator, that they become exceedingly troub- 

 lesome and always shy about having the mouth or head han- 

 dled. 



By keeping the little finger upon the bar of the mouth, the 

 tongue can never be injured ; the hand follows every motion 

 of the head without being dragged by the tongue. By deliv- 

 ering the ball smartly, and without instruments, no pain is pro- 

 duced, and no resistance offered. A hot troublesome horse 

 should be sent to a veterinary surgeon. The probability is 

 that the groom will fail ; he may lodge the ball among the 

 teeth, or injure the mouth, and the horse will be pained to no 

 purpose, and taught to resist all operations about his head. 



Preparing for Physic. — If a full dose of physic be given 

 when the bowels are costive, it is apt to produce colic and in- 

 flammation. The medicine is dissolved in the stomach, passes 

 into the intestines, and mingles with their fluid and semilluid 

 contents ; but, as it travels on, it arrives at a point where the 

 contents are solid ; the physic is arrested ; it lies longer there 

 thnn at any previous part of its course ; its continued presence 

 produces spasmodic and painful contractions of the bowels to 

 force it on. If the intestinal contents be very obstinate, if 

 the obstruction be not dissolved, irritation and infiammation 

 succeed, and the horse's life is in dantrer. To obviate this, 

 the bowels for one or two days previous are to be gently and 

 uniformly relaxed by giving bran mashes, by withholding 



