DITJHETICS. 169 



extraordinary changes in the general appearance of a horse in 

 so short a period of time. 



In acute systemic maladies, and in systemic maladies of a 

 low typhoid nature, the administration of purgatives wiU 

 generally prove injurious to the patient. They are recom- 

 mended by every writer as indispensable in cases of tetanus. 

 I have not, however, found them necessary in this disease. 

 The constipated state of the bowels, so common at the onset of 

 the malady, can be more readily overcome by means of injec- 

 tions of warm water and oily emollients, than by purgatives, 

 letting alone the absence of their irritating and debilitating 

 eflFects. In the generaKty of tetanic cases, I condemn their 

 use entirely. 



Por particulars relating to the best kind of purgative for 

 the horse, for the proper mode of preparing the animal before 

 a purgative is administered, and for instructions relating to the 

 proper treatment of the animal afterwards, the reader must 

 turn to pages 75, 76, and 77. 



DiTjEBTics. — Diuretics are favourite remedies vrith grooms 

 and stablemen. Formerly a diuretic was given to a horse 

 every Saturday night or Sunday morning ; much of this, how- 

 ever, is now happUy abandoned, but the practice yet remains 

 in many large horse establishments. I am at a loss to know 

 their use, except to make drug biUs. The majority of respect- 

 able veterinary surgeons have utterly discarded their adminis- 

 tration to healthy horses years ago. 



Horses subject to severe labour necessarily perspire much, 

 particularly during the prevalence of hot weather, and as a 

 natural consequence, they secrete less fluid urine ; and diuretics 

 are given under the foolish impression of rectifying this. The 

 animal drugged without a doubt urinates more in quantity in 



