598 EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS, 
into the ingredients of which we are told wax does not enter. 
Whatever the plastic material may be, it is exceedingly firm 
and durable ; for the doctor’s nephew, who took the work to 
pieces for our information and amusement, threw the layers 
and plates, as he unbolted them off the structure, upon the table 
with perfect nonchalance , assuring us, that, in casting them so 
about, il riy avoit point de danger of their breaking. We do 
not mean, in awarding Dr. Auzoux very great credit for his 
ingenuity in this industrial performance, to assert that his work 
is calculated to supersede examination and dissection of the 
dead body. We should be wanting, indeed, in our estimate of 
surgery to make any such a statement; but we do think that, 
in a national veterinary museum, or even in a private one 
boasting of being open to the admission of the public, such a 
preparation would, to say the least of it, prove attractive and 
command admiration. To our Royal Veterinary College, or to 
any large veterinary institution, the cost of the curiosity — 
between one and two hundred pounds — could be no great con- 
sideration. It might even be purchased by some individual 
for the purpose of illustration of popular veterinary lectures. 
It is a pity, we think, such a work should be suffered to leave 
our country. 
We have, by the last mail from India, received a letter from 
Mr. Hurford, veterinary surgeon to the 15th King’s Hussars, 
stationed at Bangalore, Madras, in which he speaks, in bold 
and confidential language, of the advantages to be derived from 
the combination of gentian root with our common cathartic 
mass. He says, his ordinary “ purging ball” is composed of 
aloes and gentian, of each 3ijss ; and that this comparatively 
small dose of the cathartic ingredient generally produces a com- 
mencement of purgation in ten hours from its administration. 
This “ fact” Mr. Hurford states he has communicated to the 
persons in charge of the H. E. I. Company’s stud at Opoor, 
and that they have become from experience so well pleased 
with it, that since then they have used no other purging ball. 
On more accounts than one it is deserving of our attention ; 
and, for our own part, we shall lose no time in giving the no- 
velty a trial. 
