EFFECTS OF MEDICINE ON HORSES. 
347 
arising in the stomach and intestines has been more violent 
than even in cases where the mineral has been given internally. 
The same eminent physiologist has likewise made it apparent, 
from his experimental researches, that arsenic acts as a poison 
by causing suspension of the functions of the heart and brain 
through absorption of it into the circulation ; and also, that, 
though arsenic was but applied to a wound, or inserted under- 
neath the skin, the animal died with the same symptoms of 
inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach and intes- 
tines as though it had been exhibited inwardly. 
Administered to horses, arsenic is no less certainly poisonous 
than to other animals; though enormous doses of the mineral have 
been, on some occasions, given, without such effects following as 
might, from its known efficacy, have been reasonably looked for. 
A horse suspected of having glanders, a patient of my father’s, 
was, at the suggestion of Professor Coleman, submitted to the 
efficacy of arsenic given in powder, made up into balls with 
linseed meal and treacle. On the first day a drachm was pre- 
scribed, and this dose was augmented by one scruple daily, for 
seventeen days, the horse consequently taking on the last day, 
in one ball, six drachms and one scruple of the mineral; making 
the aggregate of his doses seven ounces, six drachms, one scruple, 
or very nearly half a pound of arsenic in the course of the seven- 
teen days, and yet he never once refused his food, nor had any 
disturbance of his pulse or respiration, nor evinced any pain 
or uneasiness. From the progress his disease had made while 
under the experiment he was now destroyed. His stomach 
bore evidence of virulent inflammation and its vascular lining was 
coated with coagulable lymph. The case constitutes one in- 
stance, among many, where horses have shewn, after death, 
intense gastritis, without having, during life, evinced any symp- 
tom of the existence of such disease. 
The following experiment will shew by how much less quantity 
of arsenic some horses will be affected, even to destruction. 
Three horses having glanders were, after being subjected to 
treatment for their complaints which had failed in affording 
them any relief, submitted to the operation of the common white 
arsenic. Five-grain doses were prescribed to be administered 
daily, in balls made up in the ordinary way. On the fourth day, 
one of them, having during the interval become sadly disordered 
from his glanders, was shot. On the fourth day after this — the 
eighth from the commencement of the experiment— the balls 
having, since the death of the other horse, been administered to 
the surviving two, morning and evening, one of them was attacked 
with shivering, loss of appetite, symptoms of great abdominal 
