702 
MISCELLANEA. 
the strength, firmness, and solidity of a horse’s hoof was of 
much greater importance than with us, and was esteemed 
one of the first praises of a fine horse. Xenophon, in his 
treatise on horsemanship, gives particular directions for 
hardening a horse’s hoofs. For want of the artificial defence, 
which we use, Amos (ch. vi, ver. 12), speaks of it as a thing 
as impracticable to make horses run upon hard rock, as to 
plough up the same rock with oxen. 
PRESCRIPTIONS IN LATIN. 
The editor of the Knickerbocker ludicrously illustrates the 
necessity of a reform in medical nomenclature. Very much 
confounded, he says, was Dr. Doane, a few years since, by a 
remark of one of his patients. The day previous, the doctor 
had prescribed that safe and palatable remedy, the syrup of 
blackthorn, and left his prescription duly written in the usual 
cabalistic characters — “ Syr. Rham. Cath.” On inquring if 
the patient had taken the medicine, a thunder-cloud darkened 
her face, lightning darted from her eye, and she roared out 
No ! I can read your doctor-writing — and I aint a going to 
take Syrup of Ram Cats for any body.” 
