536 AT WHAT TIME HORSES SHOULD RE LET BLOOD. 
from twelve a’clock to six at night it is bile; and from six to mid¬ 
night it is melancholy. This, which I affirme may seem to be a 
vain discourse, without any kind of ground or solid foundation, 
but you may satisfie yourself by an easie experiment made after 
th is manner :— 
Endeavour to know the temper of your horse, and let us sup¬ 
pose him to be bilious ; then draw blood of him betwixt twelve 
a'clock in the day and six a’clock at night, that is to say about four, 
and you will find, that as you have made the evacuation in that 
time wherein bile did predomine, so you will have evacuated a 
great deal of bile, which will convince you of the truth of what I 
affirme, because it will be almost all bile; whereas if you should 
take blood from the same horse about four a'clock in the morn¬ 
ing, which is the time that blood predominates, you will then 
find his blood good, and but a little mixture of bile amongst it; 
and so of the other humours. 
This change in the mass of the blood is a certain token of its 
circulation; and in effect, if it had not this motion, it would 
corrupt after the same manner as those humours that are in the 
body do, who either ly still or are stopt in some part of the body, 
and which by reason of their putrefaction are the cause and origine 
of many diseases : and blood, did it not circulate, would so much 
the more easily putrifie, in that it eontaines in it the principles of 
corruption; to wit, heat and moisture. 
Now this being laid down as a principle, is it not very advan¬ 
tageous to evacuate the humour that offends, or causes any indis¬ 
position in the horse 1 This may, no doubt, be done by this ob¬ 
servation, wffiich is to take blood of him in that time wherein the 
humour which a man intends to evacuate doth most predomine 
in the veins; but, upon the contrary, blooding will be prejudicial 
to him if practised at any other time, because there will then be 
evacuated an humour which neither offends in quantity nor quali¬ 
ty: it is, therefore, of the greatest consequence to observe ex¬ 
actly the time and hour in which it is most proper to blood a 
horse. 
I lay down, then, for an infallible rule, that the sanguine 
horse should be bled at four in the morning, the pituitous or 
phlegmatick at ten, the bilious or fiery at four aclock in the after¬ 
noon, and the melancholick at ten at night; and if till now’ 
you have performed many bloodings which have produced bad 
effects, it is because you did not know and make use of these 
observations. 
Blooding should be also practised as much as possible in the in¬ 
crease of the Moon, and never when she is in the signs of Leo or 
Taurus , when the blood is to be taken from the neck ; or if it be 
