iMATERIA MEDICA. 
653 
basilicon, it increases their activity, and renders them a proper 
application to setons, &c. when the suppuration diminishes. It 
is often used for this purpose in its state of purity, to moisten 
the cords of the seton. It has also the advantage of bringing 
more speedily forward inflammatory swellings, and producing 
pus, more laudable, and in a greater quantity, than will follow 
the application of cantharides; nevertheless, the general irrita¬ 
tion which it causes should induce us to avoid it whenever there 
exists an acute inflammation, the danger of which every active 
irritant will increase. 
The spirit of turpentine has been celebrated as a vermifuge, 
and chiefly as expelling the tape-worm. We may readily be¬ 
lieve this, when we recollect this medicine is not decomposed 
in the stomach, but enters almost unchanged into the intestinal 
canal. 
Tar acts internally as a vermifuge. Applied externally to 
parts affected with mange, it almost always cures them. It forms, 
while drying, a kind of scab, which, at the expiration of some 
days, detaches itself, and leaves the skin underneath supple, 
white, and perfectly sound. It is principally on the horse that 
it produces this effect. In order, however, to render it more 
useful for this purpose, it is necessary to associate it with some 
other substances capable of mitigating its irritating properties, 
while, at the same time, its power for the cure of mange may be 
preserved. This is especially requisite when it is necessary to 
spread it over a large surface. Equal parts of soft soap and tar 
will be a very effectual application. 
Copaiba. —This stimulates the intestinal and the urinary 
passages. It has, like other medicaments of this nature, the 
property of modifying and lessening irritability of that mem¬ 
brane; and is therefore used in chronic discharges. It is seldom 
given to large animals, but often administered to the dog when 
he has a supposed gonorrheal discharge from the penis. I have 
given it for a long time, but without success, to horses with 
glanders. 
It may be administered in the form of drink, suspended in 
some aqueous vehicle ; or in that of a ball associated with other 
substances that are supposed to have a similar effect. The dose 
for the larofer animals would be from two to four ounces ; and 
from half a drachm to a drachm for the smaller ones. 
As for diuretic medicines drawn from the animal kingdom, I 
know but of two, the urea, or principle of the urine, but which 
has never been employed, so far as I am aware, in veterinary 
medicine; and cantharides. The action of the Spanish fly 
is not, peihaps, well understood : its influence is not on the 
