Nimrod's remarks on the condition of hunters, the choice of horses, and their management : reprinted from the "Sporting magazine" / by C. Tongue.
- Cecil, 1800-1884.
- Date:
- [1880?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Nimrod's remarks on the condition of hunters, the choice of horses, and their management : reprinted from the "Sporting magazine" / by C. Tongue. Source: Wellcome Collection.
368/424 page 356
![I shall next cursorily point out the healthy states, and some of the diseased or disordered conditions of body, in which we are in the habit of administering cathartic medi- cines ; for purgatives are sometimes given in health, as pre- paratives, or auxiliaries to putting horses into condition; whereas they are never given in disease but to remove that which is the cause of the malady, or that which has more or less influence in its progress or continuance. The simplest view we can take of the exhibition of a dose of cathartic medicine is the expulsion of the faecal contents of the large in- testines in a shorter time than they otherwise would have been discharged. This is what is called unloading the bowels and is the principal intention in purging horses that have been recently taken up from grass. But it is scarcely pos- sible thus to limit its operation ; for every laxative that we administer must in some decree augment the intestinal se- cretions, if not the biliary and pancreatic as well, and thus remotely be productive of other consequences. When we improve the condition of a horse in apparent health by the administration of alteratives, or laxatives, or cathartics, we are said to accomplish it by urging the various organs em- ployed in the digestive process to a more vigorous perform- ance of their functions ; but if all the melioration the ani mal’s constitution has evidently experienced be duly esti- mated, this confined reasoning appears to be inadequate and unsatisfactory. Tliere would seem to be disorder or derange- ment somewhere in the system in all these cases, the removal' or rectification of which, either temporary or permanent, was the remote effect of the medicine, and that on which its salu- tary efficacy depended. How much do a few well-timed doses of laxative medicine contribute to restore the condition of a poor horse!—how influential soiling is in inducing a thriving diathesis, and promoting fatness and sleekness, and every other appearance of robust health !—and yet these meliorated states ])robably were not preceded by any si^ns whatever of disorder or disease ! And it is in the alterative and laxative forms that cathartics are so beneficial in promoting health](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28130479_0368.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
