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SOUTHERN CU.LTIVATOR. 
* # ' ? 

Bots of the 19th century don’t beheve in '• WBl o’ the Whis- 
pers!” They are genuine “hard shells,” being deaf, blind 
and insensible to any such “mbral.suasion,’‘ or influences 
-of the “Tominy-come-tickle-m^’' order. 
Another writer in'your paper'(W. F. P., I think} main- 
tains that bots will kill hoi-ses, because “they mil and do 
kill cattle by eating through thb skin into the loin and 
along tile sides of the back-bone,” &c ; and asks W.P. W. 
why it is sol” and concludes (a non-sequitur, by the 
bye) that the bot that is in the horse and in the cow’s 
back, are identical.” Your correspondent is both right 
and wrong, I humbly afiirm ; relatively in homcepathic and 
allopathic proportions, however. There are several kinds 
of the (Estrus, among them the CEstrus cuticolens, differ- 
ing in many particulars from CEstrus equi. They are often 
found under the skin of the cow, and sometimes of the 
horse also in some latitudes, but is, by no means, '■‘identi- 
cal” with that which is found in the stomach of the horse. 
Whether they ever kill cattle deponent saith not, but I 
'doubt it. They are more nearly “identical” with what 
are commonly called “wolves” in cattle. These never kill 
hoises and are easily removed. 
I have thus answered, I trust, such inquiries as I could, 
without lengthening this article too much. I fear I have 
already taken up too much of your columns; and will 
now proceed to give you the opinions of such authors as 
must, or ought to he, conclusive, and which embrace all 
that may appropriately be said to support my positions 
before published. 
Dr. Dadd, (Vet. Sur.), in a work recently issued, (The 
Modern Horse Doctor) maintains “That bots, generally 
speaking, are not so troublesome to horses as people think, 
for it is very rare in making post mortem examinations, 
that we do not find more or less of them in the stomach. 
We have heard ivonderful stories” (and who has not, who 
has read your CviCiffltor, Messrs. Editors'?) “related of 
the bot burrowing through the v: alls of the stomach. This 
we deny in toto, at least while the horse is olive. The little 
creature is too comfortably located to attempt its exit into 
a cavity where its destruction wmuld be inevitable. If it 
be about to vacate its stronghold, instinct teaches it the 
most safe and expeditious route, w'hich is the alimentary 
canal.” 
“We do not deny that bots are found in the abdominal 
cavity, for the moment the horse dies the various organs 
are subject, for the most part, to the laws of decomposition 
Chemical action, w'hicli, during life, was regulated by the 
vital ibrces, now assumes supremacy. Those ■pov^erful 
solvents, termed the gaslric fluids, which had previously dis- 
solved nothing but food, now act on tlie stomach itself and 
hasten its decomposition, and whathoA previously been good 
food for bots now become their bane, omd they must them- 
selves, in tnirn, be destroyed unless they esca.pe from it. The 
peristaltic motion of the alimentary canal, w’^hich, during 
the existence of the horse, w-as so favorable to their exit, 
by this channel; has ceased. They are too w’ell acquaint- 
ed with this intricate, labyrynthian outlet (the usual route) 
to attempt its passage. No, the same energies of the 
fiternal mind 
“ ‘ Pervading and instructing all that live,’ 
suggests the only mode of escape. Thestomach now offering 
bill Utile opposiiion to them, being partly decomposed, they 
burst ll^r prison-house, and hence are found in the 
stomach.” Plence the “riddled” intestines, so often alluded 
to. I hope the above may be particularly noticed, as it 
satisfactorily explains and removes a very popular error, 
far better than I have already been able to do. 
Bui again Dr. D.\dd says : “ We are frequently called 
on to visit sick horses said, to have bots, when there is no 
more connection between them and the disease, than there 
is between the horse and the anvil on which his shoes v:cre 
forged. It is all very well to say ‘the horse has the bots,’ 
and present some medicine for their expulsion, but there 
is no practical advantage gained, neither is the horse bene- 
fitted by such treatment; for mpst of the vermifuges would 
kill the horse, while the former would not be injured in the 
slightest degged.” 
The above, sjrs, are precisely the opinions addressed 
to you in my former articles. I can surely say that I am 
fortified by excellent authority in the learned gentleman 
quoted above. * 
But again ; Mr. Bracy Clark (who has axamined this 
subject more closely than any other man perhaps) says : 
“The slowness of the growth of the bots and the purity of 
the food, which is probably the chyle, must occasion what 
they receive in a given time to be proportionably small ; 
from which, perhaps, arises the extreme difficulty of des- 
troying them by any medicine or poison thrown into 
the stomach. After opium had been administered to a 
horse laboring under lock-jaw for a week, in doses of 1 oz. 
every day, bots loere found in the stomach perfectly alive. 
Tobacco has been employed in much larger quantities in the 
complaint and has also been continued without destroymg 
them.” 
Mr. White (another Vet. Sur.) also says : “While mak- 
ing experiments on Glanders, I found living bots in the 
stomoxh of a horse, though he had -been taking for many 
days arsenic and corrosive sublimate.” 
Mr. Bl.4IN, (Vet. Sur.) also, says: “That he has kept 
them (bots) for days in olive oil, and in oil of turpentine, 
and that even the nitrous and sulphuric acids do not im- 
mediately kill, them.” 
“It has been remarked that no effectual remedy for bots 
has been ever discovered. Yet in nine cases out of ten, if 
the animal be permitted to run a short time at grass, when 
the bot has attained its full growth, and is capable of ex- 
ercising an independent life it will detach itself from the 
stomach-and pass off with the excrement.” As I have be- 
fore written and maintained in the Southern Cultivator. 
The author of Hippopathology (one of the very best 
works extant) says: “It has been conjectured that bots 
might prove sewiceabf,e to the animal by aiding the cuticu- 
lar coat in the trituration of their food. That nature should 
have created an animal, and designed it as an inhabitant 
of, the stomach of another animal without some good, is, 
I think, highly improbable and irreconcilable with her 
beautiful and more readily explained operations. I am, 
Imwever, unable to draw the curtain v/hich is here inter- 
posed between fact and design. Supposing the bots in 
some way or other do good rather than hurt, surely v:c 
cannot be solicituous about removing them; for though we 
ame unable to demonstrate the beneficjal influence, we may 
from all the circumstances arrived at, at least assert thad 
they, in general, are not injurious. Hov:beit we can't per- 
suade the vhrld so, and therefore we must be prepared to 
meet the cpmplaints of persons who come to us, at certain 
seasons, and say tha’t their 'hnrsehaswormsf which must 
be got rid of, with a remedy for the purpose. Should any 
other malady exist at the time, no matter what, the origin 
will commonly be t>accd to the presence of these mischievous 
vermin. As fa.r as our experience goes v;e have no faith in 
medicine to expel bots,” t^c. This writer, you perceive, 
goes “all fours” with me, in every particular; and there 
cannot be produced a better authority than this work on 
Veterinary science. 
Dr. Clark, (another Vet. Sur.) reasons thus : “We can, 
it is true, force medicine down a horse’s throat, but wc 
cannot afterwards get it into the throat of the bot, who is 
placed, in his own element, and can repulse the food that 
dwes not suit him.” 
Dr. Dadd (Vet Sur.) further says : “Foreign bodies are 
sometimes found in the stomachs of horses after death 
which do not seem to occasion much inconvenience dur- 
ing life ; thxis many hundred bots have been found within 
