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EFFECTS OF MEDICINE ON HOUSES. 
naged as to establish, or rather to create, a greater number of 
veterinary infirmaries; which I do not hesitate to say, after what 
I have seen and heard, to be seldom properly organized in most 
of the regiments. 
EFFECTS OF MEDICINE ON HORSES. 
By Mr. W. Percivall. 
COPPER. 
Cuprum, copper , has from the earliest times down to the 
present been employed in medicine. It is thought that even 
Hippocrates used it as a remedy for the disorders of men ; and 
there is scarcely a book on farriery, however old its date, in which 
we do not find some mention made of it as a therapeutic agent 
for the diseases of horses. Blue vitriol , Roman vitriol , blue stone, 
are the appellations the sulphate of copper formerly went by, 
this being the preparation whose use has been so ancient as well 
as extensive both in human and veterinary medicine. 
In the metallic state, copper, like other metals, appears de- 
void of any medicinal power. Children, we know, swallow half- 
pence with impunity, and dogs have had bolusses composed of 
copper filings given to them, without their being productive of 
any apparent harm. Should any process of oxidation, however, 
take place from acids incidentally present at the time within the 
alimentary canal, an oxide of copper will be produced, and that may 
exert considerable medicinal action. The preparations employed 
in veterinary medicine are the sulphate and the acetate of copper. 
Sulphate of Copper, commonly known as blue vitriol, 
or blue stone — a compound of sulphuric acid and copper, pre- 
sented to us in the form of beautiful blue crystals — has become as 
a remedial agent so great a favourite with the veterinarian, that 
for general purposes, outward as well as inward, no medicine in 
his pharmacy is oftener resorted to by him. Internally, blue 
vitriol has for years, I might almost say ages, been exhibited as a 
remedy — a specific, indeed — for farcy and glanders, and has been 
supposed to have a tonic or strengthening effect as well. In large 
doses its action becomes poisonous. The following cases will 
serve to shew the effect it takes on horses, as well as tend to 
exhibit its value as an antidote for glanders and farcy. 
Case I. — A black gelding had incipient glanders, in other 
respects manifested good health. It was agreed — between Pro- 
