3S4 
OX PHYSICKING HORSES. 
know; I can only assure you that any interference with it was un- 
wittingly done on my part. 
The next popular error connected with our profession, which I 
intend in this paper to bring before the notice of your readers, is 
that of the competency of men — not professionally educated — to 
judge of the necessity for and the proper exhibition of physic. 
This I have no doubt will appear startling enough at first sight, as 
almost every one who has ever, a dozen times in his life, dressed, 
cleaned, or fettled a horse, as they respectively term it, amongst 
the first, second, and third rate artistes in the stable department, 
thinks himself a complete judge of the necessity for physic, and 
that he is the best and most proper administrator of it. This is 
an error which has arisen, I am inclined to think, from the 
owners of horses — reasoning from analogy — supposing that the 
operation of physic in the horse is as simple and harmless as it 
usually is in the human subject, though every veterinary sur- 
geon’s experience is a deposit for numerous instances to the con- 
trary. 
I know that it is difficult, nay almost impossible, to persuade 
our employers that the exhibition of physic ought to be left in the 
hands of veterinary surgeons. Most grooms, from a love of 
their own management, and many of our patrons on the score of 
economy, are averse to make application to us on these occasions ; 
and yet I am thoroughly convinced that there is no man who 
has been any time in practice who could not refer to facts in his 
own neighbourhood that would prove a loss of property to the 
community, much greater in amount than the savings of all put 
together would produce by allowing grooms on these occasions to 
usurp the province of the veterinary surgeon. I am sure I could 
point out many instances of the loss of valuable animals from the 
exhibition of common physic deficient in quality or in quantity, 
and also from being given at a time wheu a purgative was really 
counter-indicated, and in cases, too, where no regular practitioner 
could have made the same mistake. 
As your work is widely circulated, I should be extremely happy 
if I could, by any remarks of mine, restore this necessary branch of 
our professional art to its legitimate owners. As one who has seen 
much of the evil effects of the mal-administration of purgatives, 
I broadly assert that no groom is qualified to judge of the necessity 
for giving physic except in cases of excess of or long-continued 
condition, where, in fact, it is highly advisable to lower the 
stamina of the animal. If given at all as a part of medical treat- 
ment for disease of any kind, it should be under the imme- 
diate direction of a skilful practitioner. So many diseases of the 
horse, particularly, are so immediately connected with or so easily 
transferrible to mucous tissues, that a more than ordinary degree 
