THE COLLEGE VETERINARY PHARMACOPOEIA. 
565 
I have some indistinct recollection of its having been openly 
acknowledged that boiling oil was purposely selected , on account 
of its high degree of temperature, and the slowness with which 
it cools, but I would rather persuade myself it is to be traced 
to that ignorance of chemistry, which so many articles in this 
precious farrago so plainly evince. The compiler of the Pharma¬ 
copoeia did not know that resin would melt at 150 degrees of 
temperature, and that it would be scalding hot at 200, while oil 
would not boil at a lower heat than GOO. The word oil was sub¬ 
stituted for resin , and boiling for scalding , either inadvertently, 
or to avoid the appearance of servilely copying other prescriptions ; 
but he did not, could not dream of the additional and perfectly 
unnecessary torture he was inflicting on the poor beast. 
These scalding mixtures, however, although of 400 degrees of 
heat less than this, are getting into disrepute and disuse among 
humane and experienced practitioners. If every sinus is care¬ 
fully bottomed, and a seton with a depending orifice passed 
through each, so that the pus can run out as fast as it is formed, 
although it may be necessary to 'stimulate the surface of the 
wound, and, occasionally, we may be compelled to resort to an 
application that will cause considerable pain, there will be no 
necessity for inflicting on the animal the most horrible tortures, 
and, least of all, will there be need to kill instead of stimulating 
the part. Have we not in these applications the explanation of 
many an obstinate case of poll evil and fistulous withers ? Instead 
of rousing the parts to healthy action, we have, by our boiling 
oil , inevitably and irrecoverably destroyed their vitality : we have 
increased instead of arresting the progress of gangrene and of 
death. 
But here, Gentlemen, I will for the present break off, for 
I am scarcely in a proper frame of mind to do calm and equal 
justice to the remaining articles of the Royal Veterinary College 
Pharmacopoeia. I must forget a little that the head and source 
of that profession which can be legitimately founded on “the 
union of science and humanity alone/’ has ordered a degree of 
torture to be inflicted on the horse which the most brutal farrier, 
in the darkest age of ignorance and brutality, never dared to do. 
A Practitioner. 
a smith's forge, luke warm, or with warm wine , urine , or the second water , 
and powder it again with hot ashes. Repeat the same two or three times 
once in twenty-four hours; after which you will find the sore in a very hope¬ 
ful condition, without swelling, heat, or any other symptom that may retard 
the cure; for the salt contained in the ashes is heated and melted by the 
inoistness of the sore, and, being a kind of alkali , it destroys the acid and 
corrosive humour , that falls by way of defluxion upon the part, and, that 
being destroy’d, the swelling abates and the heat vanishes.” 
VOL. IV. 4 H 
