382 
GENTIAN AN AUXILIARY CATHARTIC. 
from each of those gentlemen: one had tried, and proposed to 
continue, the other intended to try, the medicine. After a lapse 
of some months, I thought I might fairly ask if they had car¬ 
ried out their intentions, and the result. Their answers 1 hope 
you will submit to our public, through the pages of your 
Magazine. 
] am happy to say, the opinions of these two gentlemen are 
favourable beyond my most sanguine expectations. They have 
confirmed the opinion already formed by myself, that I had 
made known an agent which increased the purgative power of 
aloes so much as to allow of our using about half the usual 
quantity in a dose ; with, I think 1 may fairly say, increased 
effect in a much shorter time, and without producing those 
unpleasant or untoward effects often produced by a full dose of 
aloes; in fact, my own experience confirms the remark on 
case VI. I never saw any other horses go through their physic 
so well. 
Without being unduly biassed in favour of my own com¬ 
munication, I think I may consider it a subject not wholly 
devoid of interest; and in that view you will concur with me 
in regretting the apathy which, after a lapse of eight months, 
has prevented all but two of the body of veterinary surgeons 
- from giving it a trial, or, at least, from communicating their 
opinions. 
As I am about to return to India, allow me, with my best 
wishes for an increase of your correspondents, to say, for the 
present, “ good bye !” 
Sincerely your’s, 
T. Hurford, V.S., 15th Hussars. 
1st June, 1852. 
Rochdale, May 23, 1852. 
Dear Sir,—I must plead guilty of neglecting to forward to 
The Veterinarian the promised experiment on gentian as an 
auxiliary to aloes in promoting catharsis; 
You will see, by the cases I enclose, how it has acted in my 
practice. I may say, I am so well convinced of the superiority 
of the combination that I never now give aloes alone. I com¬ 
menced using it the very day—October 1st—I saw your com¬ 
munication in The Veterinarian, having then two patients 
just ready for physic, one having been a week up from grass. 
Since then I find its action so certain that I never now give 
more than 3 iv to the largest dray or cart-horse, 3ij generally 
sufficing for light-bred horses. 
Please accept my best thanks for the obligation we are all 
under for your valuable communication. I should like you to 
