EFFECTS OF MEDICINE ON HORSES. 
55 
What, perhaps, has tended to confirm its topical efficacy in 
human medicine has been its known power of producing even de- 
leterious effects when administered in very small quantities as an 
internal medicine : nay, the very effluvia of the mineral arising 
from surfaces recently painted is sufficient to excite in some per- 
sons very unpleasant effects or sensations ; and we all know how 
generally unhealthy is the aspect of men employed in painters’ 
work. This has deterred surgeons from prescribing lead to the de- 
gree or extent they otherwise might have done ; and though they 
do so on occasions, in some diseases, with manifest advantage, 
every now and then it has happened that very unexpected and 
alarming symptoms have followed its exhibition. In respect to 
horses, I have given the ACETAS PLUMBI — the sugar of lead, as 
we call it — both in glanders and in periodic ophthalmia : in neither 
disease, however, with any visible benefit. Its exhibition was 
as follows : — 
To the first, a glandered horse, it was administered for several 
days in half-ounce doses morning and evening, without producing 
any effect, either on the disease or state of health of the animal. 
To the second horse, having periodic ophthalmia, it was given in 
ounce doses twice a-day for five days, without any noticeable 
result. 
To the third horse, glandered, it was given on the first day, in 
the dose of an ounce morning and evening ; on the second, this 
dose was doubled ; and on the third and fourth days, the two-ounce 
doses were continued morning and evening. On the fifth day, the 
horse refused his food, and had an intermittent pulse ; therefore the 
medicine was omitted. On the sixth day, however, the same doses 
were repeated ; which on the seventh day produced such alarming 
return of the symptoms of nausea, dejection, and derangement 
of the pulse, that the medicine was from this time discontinued 
altogether. 
In neither case did any symptoms of colic or palsy present 
themselves. 
Zinc, 
Another of the metals which, in veterinary medicine, has been 
more used as an external than an internal remedy : indeed, zinc has 
hardly yet found a place in our pharmacopoeia as a medicine. I 
have notes by me giving some account of the exhibition of the 
sulphate of zinc ; I have, myself, since administered in considerable 
doses the oxide. 
Sept. 2d, 1804. — Two horses, in good condition, though having 
chronic discharges from the nostrils, commenced with taking doses of 
