98 ON CLIPPING THE HOUSE, AND THE EFFECT 
and less within the sphere of irritation, or causes which induce 
disease from without, I am prepared to bear testimony to. 
I bought a cob in the month of September 1838, with a fixed 
cold — a catarrh of some months’ standing, which interfered not with 
his general health, and proved only a source of annoyance. I 
made him the subject of experiment, and commenced a trial of 
opium in combination with hydrocyanic acid and other agents. 
The first dose contained 3ss of opium and seven drops of the acid, 
of Scheele’s strength. Accidentally going into the box about two 
hours after giving it, to my surprise I found the horse completely 
vertigose — unconscious of things passing around him — reeling to 
and fro, and unstable in all his movements. I examined into the 
state of the circulation, and found the pulse beating twenty-six per 
minute. This was too interesting a scene to be passed over with- 
out further notice. I directly turned my attention from the attempt 
of removing the disease, and began to institute an inquiry as to the 
agent or agents by which so interesting a phenomenon had been 
produced. 
On the following day, the pulse being thirty-six per minute, I 
gave one drachm of opium in the form of ball. In two hours after 
he appeared drowsy ; but there was nothing approaching to vertigo, 
and the effect died away in a few hours, without any marked im- 
pression being made on the pulse. 
On the next day I gave twenty drops of the acid in the form of 
ball, the pulse still the same. In a little more than an hour it had 
fallen to thirty, where for a few hours it remained, without any 
other visible effect being produced. 
On the fourth day I gave the opium and acid in combination, as 
on the first day ; when, again, precisely the same effect was pro- 
duced, the pulse falling to twenty-four per minute, and continuing 
there for three hours or more. The discovery of this, which pro- 
mised to be of practical advantage, awakened in my mind the most 
pleasing train of thought. The hope that I had gained by the com- 
bination of two agents such direct sedative action, led me to give 
it further trial ; when I found that it produced the same effect on 
another horse — that in both it allayed the irritation, and gave tem- 
porary relief : temporary, I say, for, to my mortification, I found 
that, when discontinued, the cough returned. 
But, although defeated, one point was gained, and the words of 
our friend, Mr. Morton, were verified — “ the advantage to be de- 
rived from the combination of medicinal substances has been too 
much lost sight of.” By this experiment it was ascertained that 
an influence — a sedative power — over the heart’s action can, to the 
degree which has been shewn, be safely obtained only by the com- 
