THE COLLEGE VETERINARY PHARMACOPOEIA. 503 
application ; but, now, these are to be boiled in ten ounces of 
treacle. The only effect intended to be produced is to com¬ 
bine the whole in the convenient form of a syrup : but care must 
be taken here ; the mixture should scarcely simmer, or the verdi¬ 
gris will be decomposed; and a portion of the copper, if it does 
not return to its metallic state, will be much less oxidized. A 
much more chemical way would be, to triturate them well to¬ 
gether, and as convenient a syrup would be formed without de¬ 
composition; and we should have that which would be manifestly 
useful in thrush, in canker, and in grease. 
To the syrup, however, two ounces and a half of sulphuric 
acid is to be added ; and what is the effect then ? The copper, 
having a far stronger affinity for sulphuric than it has for acetic 
acid, quits the acetic acid, and unites itself to the sulphuric, 
and we have a solution, or a syrup of blue vitriol, with a good 
deal of free acetic acid, and a solution or syrup of alum; and 
these may constitute a good or a bad application, but which 
could be made, without all this fuss, by using the sulphate 
of copper in the first place. Let not another question on che¬ 
mistry be asked at any examination, until the dispenser has 
run his pen through this said sulphuric acid: he had better run 
it through the whole formula. What can be expected from the 
pupil when the pharmacopoeia, or the author of the pharmaco¬ 
poeia, blunders so abominably ? Have mercy, good Dr. Babing- 
ton, on the student, when his masters ought to go to school 
again! 
Balls. — Cathartic Mass. 
Cape aloes.- -.eight pounds 
Treacle____.__. - three pounds 
Olive oil.......... one pound 
Soft soap_........one pound. 
Melt together in a warm bath, and stir until well mixed.—Dose, 
from one ounce to two. 
I confess that I could never bring myself to like Cape aloes. 
In a public establishment like the Veterinary College, where 
the horse, under physic, can be exercised as much as the head 
of the establishment chooses to order, or where, in fact, he 
can be exercised until the physic does work; or in a cavalry 
regiment, where there are the same facilities for exercise, Cape 
aloes may be used; yet even there the Barbadoes are prefer¬ 
able, as more certain, and far less liable to gripe : but in pri¬ 
vate practice, where grooms will not take too much trouble with 
their horses, and where the failure of a dose of physic, or griping 
occasioned by it, would be magnified into an almost unpardonable 
sin, Cape aloes will not and cannot do. There is not one private 
practitioner in twenty who uses them. He begins with using them 
