EPIDEMIC CATARRH. 
121 
of the former medicine in the quantity of two drachms, or per¬ 
haps half an ounce. You must attend more sedulously to the 
feeding. Try every kind of green meat that you can obtain, par¬ 
ticularly give carrots nicely scraped and sliced ; change the food 
every day, as the capricious appetite prompts; if necessary, force 
with gruel, as thick as it will run from the horn ; but give no 
corn, no not a morsel. The nurse, in the form of an attentive 
groom, will be the best doctor in this stage of the disease. 
Tonics .—Are you yet making no progress ? then you must 
venture on a tonic, but with a great deal of caution. Still ad¬ 
minister the fever medicine, but add to each ball a drachm of 
gentian. When there has been much previous fever it may be pru¬ 
dent to prepare the way even for this, by the administration of a 
drachm of pow'dered chamomile flowers morning and night, added 
to the fever ball. If this compound of sedative and tonic medicine 
has effect, I will permit you, though unwillingly, to omit the for¬ 
mer. Give one drachm of gentian, half a drachm of ginger, and 
half an ounce of the spirit of nitrous ether, in a little gruel; and 
this having produced its effect, the appetite being a little recalled, 
the horse being evidently somewhat better, do not make more haste 
than good speed. You may very easily give one dose of tonic 
medicine too much. You may kindle the fire afresh. When 
nature is set a going after such a disease, let her alone; or if you 
must continue to give medicine—if the prejudices of the master 
or the groom seem imperiously to require it, give the best drug 
your pharmacopoeia now affords—a few linseed-meal balls. 
I know not which is most to be dreaded, or has been the cause 
of most murders, playing with the disease at first, or hurrying 
the process of convalescence afterwards. Gentlemen, when you 
have lost your first horse by the injudicious use of tonics, re¬ 
member what I have now told you. 
The personal Attendance of the Veterinary Surgeon .—You 
will gather from what I have said, the paramount importance of 
your personal and most diligent attention to these cases. This 
involves the whole secret of the treatment of epidemic catarrh. 
Such cases you should get, if possible, into your own infirmary, 
where you may see your patient many times in the day; or if you 
must visit him at the stable of the owner, let no day pass without 
your early and late attendance on him. A thoroughly-qualified 
assistant, a veterinary surgeon cannot always afford to keep, and 
in some views it would not be prudent so to do. A rival in skill 
might turn out by-and-by a dangerous rival in practice. If you 
must content yourselves with the assistant who will do what 
you desire him, and of whose rivalry you have no fear, let your 
own personal attendance be exemplary, and especially let it be 
VOL. VI. Q 
