5.22 ALOES WITH GENTIAN AS A CATHARTIC. 
mass would have done. I am induced to make known these 
facts, in the hope that, as well as being serviceable to practi¬ 
tioners in general, they may be gratifying to my respected 
friend, Hurford, previous to his leaving this country. 
Mr. Hurford, from his gentlemanly deportment and pro¬ 
fessional abilities, I am quite sure, stands high in the estima¬ 
tion of his brother officers, and cannot fail to do credit to a 
profession to which he belongs,—whose respectability depends 
so much upon the description of men appointed into Her 
Majesty’s service; and I fully concur in opinion with my 
friend, F. King, of Stanmore, that no person should be recom¬ 
mended for such appointments, who has not presented him¬ 
self before, and obtained the certificate from, the Board of 
Examiners of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. I 
may add, I am sorry to find that this has not been acted up 
to. I beg to suggest that a memorial be drawn up and for¬ 
warded to the Commander-in-Chief, pointing out the impro¬ 
priety of acting otherwise, and praying that for the future, 
no individual be commissioned who does not possess the 
said certificate of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. 
C. Percivall, V.S., Royal Artillery. 
Dacre Park, Blackheath; 
Aug. 17 th, 1852. 
ALOES WITH GENTIAN AS A CATHARTIC. * 
By A. Henderson, M.R.C.V.S., Park Lane, London. 
To the Editor of “ The Veterinarian /’ 
Dear Sir, — I send you an account of some experiments 
I made, in order to test the effects of a small dose of aloes in 
combination with gentian. It will be seen that the balance 
has turned in favour of the remedy, by which I am led to 
concur with Mr. Hurford’s statement, that half a dose of 
aloes used with an equal quantity of gentian is a very 
valuable substitute for a full dose of aloes, which is but too 
apt to induce untoward results. At the same time I agree 
with that gentleman that it should not be made use of as a 
regular purge ; since, in the cases wherein I have administered 
3 iij of each ingredient, I have found, generally speaking, that 
the dose has operated quickly, but not so vigorouslg as I 
should have expected 5v or 5 yj of aloes to have operated on 
the same subject. 
