TO Mil. CLELAND ON THE TREATMENT OF A FOAL. 683 
Judging, from these symptoms, that the purging was induced 
by an increased flow of bile into the intestines, caused by the 
severe exercise he had taken in the field after his long confine- 
ment, and increased by the altered condition of the milk of the 
mare, I administered a quantity of the medicine I have before 
mentioned, mixed in a little starch gruel, and threw up an enema 
of the same. 
Before leaving him, however, I ordered that, if he shewed 
symptoms of pain by turning his head to his flank or by hur- 
ried respiration or soreness upon pressure, to foment his abdomen 
with a blanket wrung out of warm water, with gentle hand-rubbing 
on the surface of the body and extremities; but, independent of 
these, to continue drenching him with starch and oatmeal gruel, 
with occasional enemata. 
I then left him, with the understanding that, if my services 
were again required, l should be sent for. 
To return to Mr. C. — He sends the description of a case of 
obstruction of the bowels by overheated milk, as he is pleased to 
call it, the perusal of which certainly brought to my remembrance 
the fable of the mountain in labour, &c. 
He goes on to say, in his 3d and 4th paragraphs, that I visited 
him, &c., and that, by the time Mr. C. reached Springfield, the 
purging had increased. Now, I am led to conclude from these 
sentences, that the foal was purging the day previous, when 
Mr. C. saw him, after being taken unwell; therefore I should 
say that the foal must either have been labouring under obstruc- 
tion of the bowels before turning out (if it were possible to exist 
at all), and, of course, could not be produced by over- heated, or 
rather an altered state of the milk, as he had not as yet sucked 
it; or, on the other hand, that the altered condition of the milk, 
aided by the severe exercise, produced superpurgation, a case of 
which, in my opinion, Mr. C. truly describes, and which, Mr. 
Editor, in my practice I always find to be the case when a mare 
has been so irritated as to produce that chemical change on the 
milk, the nature of which we are unacquainted with. 
But eventually Mr. C. proceeds, and by his own treatment 
causes obstruction or inspissation of the bile, by the administra- 
tion of port-wine, magnesia, and other agents, and then leaves 
nature for three days to expel those corks (if I may so call them) 
which he himself had formed, and never attempts to assist her 
by the exhibition of laxative medicine. 
You will, perhaps, allow me to tell Mr. C. a little more about 
his living wonder, as he calls him. 
About five weeks afterwards this same mare and foal were 
travelled to Auchinleck, the seat of Sir James Boswell, a dis- 
