186 OPERATION OF ALOES ON THE HORSE. 
tition. To give a horse a drink of water we hold to be good 
practice even in health after a ball of any kind, when it has 
been swallowed ; but where there is considerable departure 
from the normal state it becomes very advisable. 
Referring lastly to exercise, except in cases of horses in 
health it is mostly injurious, certainly not necessary. An 
hour’s walking the next morning is enough under all circum- 
stances for horses in any condition. 
According to promise, 1 have next to relate cases, some of 
many that have taught me as much and more than I have now 
said on the subject of purgatives and clysters in the horse. 
It is therefore for the complete exposition of my practice, I 
begin with — 
Case 1 , of an old horse, one of a pair belonging to a 
dignitary of the church in Naples, and generally put to very 
little exertion. In the summer of 1826 I was requested to see 
the above animal, poor in condition, but, though old, he had 
been healthy until the present attack of colic, which was asso- 
ciated with gaseous distension of the abdomen, tympanitis, I 
instantly gave a dose of the best Barbadoes aloes, and ad- 
ministered clysters, which were kept up at intervals during 
the day. Much dung was passed in a loose, coarse state, and 
having an offensive smell. I attributed the attack to bad, in- 
digestible, hay and other food, and it was not until the day 
after that I became fully aware of the cause and nature of 
the disease. Soon after the first injections were given the 
spasms abated ; as the day passed on the tense state of the 
abdomen diminished, the muscles felt lax, and the horse 
appeared at his ease. Clysters were continued at intervals of 
an hour, some tepid water was given him to drink, and in the 
evening he was so much relieved that I did not see him until 
daylight next morning. On entering the stable it was per- 
ceived that purgation had set in during the night ; the eva- 
cuations were watery, with coarse, undigested pieces of 
straw and hay intermixed, but the most extraordinary feature 
was a large quantity of black seeds dispersed on the flat 
pavement, very similar to those of the melon. They were 
discovered to be the seeds of the carrubbi pods.* In the 
* The carrubbio, my son tells me, is a cruciferous plant, the siliqua 
graeca of systematic writers on botany ; its fruit is a kind of pod, technically 
termed silique, longer than broad, containing the above seeds attached to a 
central frame, from which the valves separate. The carrubbi grow as trees 
in the kingdom of Naples. The pods of a brown colour, are sold, in the 
dry state, as food for hackney-coach and cart horses, to be given them 
broken up and mixed with bran. The pods contain a sweet pulp, and the 
flat seeds are black, and very hard, being protected by a peculiarly tough 
