792 
G. E. GRIFFIN. 
its ill effects are not so great as in those with a considerable 
amount of knee action. “Threading” or “plaiting” are 
terms used to designate the swinging of the elevated foot around 
the one that is placed on the ground in progression. This un¬ 
graceful manner of going, which occasions a loss of power, a 
tendency to brush, and liability to trip, is most clearly shown 
in the walk or slow trot. The horse that plaits is usually 
either a narrow-chested one, or one fairly wide in the chest, that 
stands with his feet very close together. This conformation is 
the opposite to that found in the straddler, and of the two evils 
the latter is the greater, for it gives rise to a stilty way of going 
and a manner of putting the feet down which is very injuri¬ 
ous to the legs. 
THE COMPOSITION OF A FEW VETERINARY PATENT 
MEDICINES. 
By G. E. Griffin, Vet. ist Class, U. S. Army, Porto Rico. 
It has been my fortune, call it good or bad, to have encoun¬ 
tered on numerous occasions individuals, generally designated 
as smart u Alicks,” professional and otherwise, armed with sun- 
dr} 7, and divers, but mostly divers, bottles of patent medicines, 
such as Elbow’s Caustic Bladderskite, Cayeuse Stiugeree, Snow¬ 
man’s Cure-All, and OwHullahan’s Dead-Sure Cure for Glan¬ 
ders, and each time the handlers of these classical remedies in¬ 
vited me to regale my olfactories wbth a sniff at the contents, 
followed by an offer to bet me that I didn’t know what thev 
were using. The result was that I got so well acquainted with 
the peculiar stench of each production that I could tell what 
they were on smell, and in self-defense would yell out their 
names, too. I soon began to ask myself what it was that led 
intelligent people to pay from #i to $3 for stuff of this kind, 
and thought it my duty to investigate their virtues and their 
composition. It didn’t take me long to discover that they pos¬ 
sessed but one virtue, faith, and that hope got in her fine licks 
and did the rest, as the kodak people say, to encourage you 
