THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
715 
such circumstances, and does not think slings were at all 
necessary in the case referred to in my communication. I 
firmly believe that if I had not slung my patient she would 
at this moment have been among the things that once were. 
Why, about three weeks after being slung, the farm overseer 
slipped the slings from under the mare, and she made a 
stagger and fell on him, dislocated his thumb and sprained 
his wrist, and required all the men from the two neighbour- 
ing farms to lift and re-sling her ! So much for Mr. Simp- 
son’s judgment on a case which he never saw, No one who 
has once seen the benefit reaped by tetanic patients from 
slings will ever again forego their use in such cases ; and I 
am well aware that the majority of the veterinary profession 
are of this opinion. 
After all spasmodic symptoms have disappeared, and our 
patients have taken to feeding in almost their usual way, the 
food which they consume often does not seem to do them any 
good, for they become leaner and weaker. Believing that 
such a state of things is owing to the sympathetic system of 
nerves having become affected and weakened during the 
severity of the spasmodic attack, and that, consequently, the 
digestive^assimilative powers have become weakened and un- 
able to perform their functions, I would prescribe a course of 
arsenic , as being most suitable for the restoration of the de- 
ranged and weakened nervous and assimilative powers. In 
the case referred to above the arsenic was very successful, 
and I have also derived much benefit from it in chronic 
rheumatism, disorders of the air-passages, &c. 
In conclusion, on looking over the Veterinarian for the 
last few years, I find so many eminent practitioners recom- 
mending the use of hydrocyanic acid in tetanus, that I will 
give it a fair trial on the first opportunity. I observe, how- 
ever, that the doses spoken of are far from resembling those 
which I was in the way of seeing administered — a fact which 
may have had a good deal to do in influencing me against its 
use. 
THE PRINCIPLES OP BOTANY. 
By Professor James Buckman, P.G.S., F.L.S., &c. &c. 
( Continued from p. 656.) 
The Lilial Alliance, which now claims our attention, con- 
tains an assemblage of plants of the highest possible interest, 
for both as striking and ornamental objects as well as active 
