THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. XXIX, 
No. 340. 
APRIL, 1856. 
Fourth Series, 
No. 16. 
Communications and Cases. 
THE OPERATION, ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE, OF 
VARIOUS KINDS OF ALOES ON THE HORSE, 
WITH CASES ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE BENEFIT ATTENDING THE 
EXCLUSIVE USE OF PURGATIVES AND CLYSTERS IN IM- 
PACTION AND SPASMODIC COLIC. 
By Joseph Gamgee, M.R.C.V.S., London. 
From my published observations and those that are here 
to follow, it will be observed that the object I have in view 
is not to prove that certain medicinal agents, often used in a 
special class of diseases, are prejudicial, so much as to show 
that more reliance, than for the past, can be placed in others, 
acknowledged to be simple, though very generally believed not 
to be prompt, or sometimes not safe, in their action. At the 
same time, the nature of things has led me to inveigh against 
some of the former, and extol the advantageous operation of 
the latter ; and if in the end I contribute in any way to quiet 
the apprehensions of young and inexperienced practitioners, 
and furnish sound doctrines for their guidance, it will be to 
me a source of gratification. 
It being generally considered that from ten to twenty 
hours are required to purge a horse, it is supposed that relief 
cannot thus be directly afforded in disorders of such an 
urgent nature as colic and indigestion. To quiet the horse 
is thought invariably advisable, and every means is resorted 
to to attain this. So reluctantly is the animal seen to roll, 
xxix. 24 
