66 PURGATIVES AND CLYSTERS IN SPASMODIC COLIC. 
Practitioners, over anxious, desirous to effect sudden cures, 
do not often have the moral courage to try, in these harassing 
affections, means which if, at first sight, apparently slow, 
certainly are safe in their operation. I have undeviatingly 
adhered to one line of practice, without obscuring results. 
I think it is ever right, in studying the effects of medicines, 
fairly to test any agent by itself, that it may be rejected or 
adopted, according to its deserts. 
From all the cases recorded in English periodicals, for 
many years past, taken as a whole, it is clear that veterinary 
surgeons are often at sea; and, if the cases related do not 
inspire one exactly with the feeling that the horses treated 
have been poisoned, they, most undoubtedly, do not appear 
strong in defence of the treatment adopted. I am alluding, 
specially, to the effects of diffusible stimulants and repeated 
inefficient doses of purgative medicine, with clysters, rarely, 
if at all given, certainly not wisely used as they deserve. 
Frightened lest by the adoption of energetic measures, 
simple spasmodic colic should go on to inflammation, pur- 
gatives are delayed till all pain has ceased, or, with the anti- 
spasmodic, oil is prescribed as a bland medicament. Every 
one is agreed, that oil acts imperfectly, in the horse, as a 
purgative ; it is a very troublesome agent to administer, 
and, for my part, I think it not so safe, and most decidedly 
not so effectual, as a good dose of aloes. 
Is the fear that a dose of aloes may irritate and excite in- 
flammation well founded ? How often is the veterinarian 
puzzled as to whether it is a simple case of colic he is 
attending, or if inflammation has set in ! Are all these ap- 
prehensions well grounded? My son, Mr. Joseph Sampson 
Gamgee, in a recently published work of his on ( Purgatives 
after Herniotomy 5 in man, argues most successfully, in my 
opinion, for the antiphlogistic and depletive effect of evacua- 
ting the bowels. No one will urge that the following sen- 
tences do not apply to the horse, or other animal, as they do 
to man. The sentiments expressed in them are perfectly in 
accordance with long-matured views of my own, from re- 
peated observation of the effect of purgatives in affections of 
the bowels in the horse. “ M. Dupuytren, on this head, is 
far too much in accordance with the doctrine of his brilliantly 
talented but too speculative contemporary, M. Broussais, to 
deserve much attention/’ says my son, referring to the illus- 
trious Baron’s prejudices against purgatives. “ M. Velpeau 
thus comments upon Dupuytren’s teaching in this matter. 
f At first sight, one is struck by the weight of his reasoning, 
though at bottom it be easy of refutation. In point of fact, 
