The agents and processes employed in preparing the horse for fast-work are, physic, sweating, blood-letting, diuretics, alteratives, diaphoretics, cordials, and exertion. I do not mean that all these are or should be in requisition for every horse, or every kind of fast-work. All, however are occasionally used, and it is proper to consider all. Without knowing what each can do, and what each can not do, it can not be judiciously employed. I consider their effects in reference to training; but some of them, such as physic and cordials, are often used when the horse is already trained and in work; and to this, or a similar circumstance, I allude in two or three places. Though not strictly connected with the preparation for work, it is right, I think, to say all I have to say about one thing in one place.

Physic

In the stable this word is entirely confined to purgative medicine.

Uses Of

To a horse going or gone into training, physio may be wanted for one or more of seven purposes. It will diminish the size of the belly; it will rectify a disordered state of the bowels, rousing them from torpor to activity; it will expel worms; it will produce real or comparative emaciation; it will cure plethora; it will prevent plethora; and it will cure swelled legs. Physic will produce other effects; but I here speak of it only in reference to preparation for work, and to the preservation of working condition.

If the horse be newly from grass, one dose will be wanted o empty his bowels. It may be given on the day he is stabled. If lusty, the dose may be strong. If the horse be lean, previously half-starved, or kept on bad food, one, perhaps two doses, may be necessary to empty the bowels, expel worms, and rouse the digestive apparatus to activity, one or all. In this case, the horse may as well be stabled for eight or ten days before his physic be given. It should be mild. If the horse be fat, lusty, or as stablemen say, full of humors, foul, or foggy, his flesh soft and flabby, he will require a smart purgative. If he be very full of flesh, have bad legs, and be a good feeder, he may need several doses, each as strong as the horse can safely bear it. His safety is never to be compromised. There are other means of reducing him, if physic, in safe doses, will not do it. He may have the first as soon as his bowels are relaxed by bran mashes. The second is not to be given in less than nine clear days.

The third, if absolutely necessary, is not to be given in less than fourteen days after the second sets.

Should the horse fall lame, or from any other cause require to lie idle for several days after his training has considerably advanced, physic may be necessary to prevent plethora. This state of the system may also be prevented by reducing the allowance of food. But racers and hunters can not be starved, and whatever kind of food they get it must either produce plethora or a large belly. The physic prevents both. Unless lameness or swelled legs demand it, the physic need not be given till the horse has been several days idle. If he must be out of work for more than two or three weeks, a second dose may be necessary. But it is only horses of very keen appetite that need physic to prevent plethora. A delicate horse of light carcass, narrow loins, and irritable temper, rarely requires physic to prevent or to cure plethora, and very seldom to remove superfluous flesh. They eat sparingly, and the training exercises reduce them more, and faster, than others of robust constitution. Between the most delicate and the most robust there are many others with whom a middle course of treatment must be adopted with regard to physic, and to everything else. While those of very strong constitution may require a full dose, the very delicate may require none.

To some a mild or a half-dose is sufficient; and to others a diuretic or an alterative may be useful, when the propriety of giving even a mild or a half-dose is doubtful.

Horses that have undergone a good deal of exertion, whether in training or in work, often need physic to refresh them. The legs may be slightly swelled, the horse a little stiff, and dull. If much emaciated, a mild dose is sufficient; if lusty the dose may be strong, particularly if the legs be the worse or wear.

The Effects of Physic vary with the strength of the dose, the number of doses, and the condition of the horse. One dose, mild or strong, merely empties the bowels; two, three, or a greater number, of mild, perhaps only half-doses, given at proper intervals, rouse the digestive organs to more than ordinary activity, and make the lean horse acquire flesh. But if the doses be given at intervals too short, the bowels become very irritable; they remain relaxed; the evacuations are soft, too pultaceous, and a draught of cold water, or a little fast work, produces actual purgation. In such a case the horse becomes excessively lean and weak, and it is often a long time ere. he recovers. He has had physic too frequently, even though each dose were mild.

One strong dose, besides evacuating the bowels, and lightening the belly, produces emaciation. The purgative drug acts first upon the inner surface of the stomach and bowels. It irritates this surface, which pours forth a copious secretion of water-like fluid, for the purpose of diluting and weakening the irritant. The fluid is derived from the blood. When the purgative is so strong as to produce very copious secretion, the loss which the blood suffers in quantity is soon felt all over the body, and an effort is quickly made to supply the place of that which has been lost. Vessels, termed absorbents, commence operations upon the fat, and upon other superfluities. These undergo a change, and acquire a resemblance to blood; they are collected, and poured into the blood-vessels, and fill the place of all the fluid that has been evacuated by the bowels. This absorption of superfluities follows every evacuation, whether it come from the bowels, the skin, or the kidneys; and I need not again advert to it. The horse becomes leaner in order that the blood-vessels may be fuller. The fat is converted into blood, or a fluid like blood; but when there is no fat to remove, or to spare, the absorbents act upon and remove other superfluous fluids and solids, wherever seated.

Thus, purging, sweating, and other evacuants, take away fatness, swelled legs, dropsies, tumors, and so forth.

Purgation always produces emaciation, more or less evident according to the violence of the operation. But when one dose succeeds another, before the bowels have quite recovered from the effects of the first, there is danger in the process Purging proceeds too far; it may be so severe that weeks must elapse ere the horse recover; it may be such as to leave the bowels excessively irritable, easily relaxed: or it may be such as to kill the horse in two or three days. These and some other bad effects of physic, arise either from giving too much physic at one time, or from giving it too often.

In hunting and racing, and even in coaching stables, horses often die under physic. The blame seldom falls upon the medicine, nor upon the man who gives it. The fault is all in the horse's constitution; instead of saying the physic was too strong, the man declares the horse was too weak, as if it were not possible to make the physic strong or weak according to the state of the horse. When the horse dies, however, it is always from an over-dose. He gets too much at once or he gets it too often, or that which he gets is made to work too strongly, for it is possible to make a small dose produce a great effect.

In the stables it is often asserted that physic is dangerous when it does not purge the horse. When not strong enough to purge the horse, the groom says it goes through the body; does not work off, but requires another, to make it work off. This is nonsense. I must have given several thousand half-doses of physic, not intended to produce any purgation, or very little. If any one of these ever did any ill, a full dose would have done a great deal more. But when the groom finds his first dose does not purge any, or not so much as he desires, he is in a hurry to give a second, which, operating with the first, is a pretty sure way to destroy the horse. If one dose do not purge, no second should be given till after four clear days.

Physic in full dose always produces temporary debility, even before purgation begins. It increases as the purging proceeds, and its duration is influenced by many circumstances. The horse is dull, sick, and sometimes a little uneasy while he is purging. He is generally sick before it begins, and while it lasts, but very often he becomes lively and desires food so soon as purgation is established.

After severe purgation the horse is weak for several days; he sweats soon and is easily fatigued. Some recover much sooner than others. To the temporary debility there often succeeds an immediate increase of energy, greater than the horse possessed before, and not altogether dependant upon the loss of superfluous flesh, nor the removal of any apparent evil. Hence physic is frequently given to racers and to hunters, in the middle of their working season, for the purpose as it is termed, of refreshing them.

A Course of Physic consists of three doses, given at intervals of from 8 to 14 days Hunters, racers, some carriage, and other horses, get two courses every year as regularly as the seasons come round; the racer in autumn after his summer running is over, and in spring after he has lain idle all winter; the hunter in spring when he goes to grass or loose-house, and in autumn when in preparation for his winter's work. Carriage, and suchlike horses, have their two courses, simply because spring and autumn are spring and autumn. This, in reference to ordinary horses, is going much out of fashion. A few venerable adherents to the old school, still remain, but their example is not very pernicious; it is little followed.

There is no season of the year at which physic is more necessary than at another. Horses, indeed, are moulting in spring and in autumn; but so long as they are in health this process is not beneficially influenced by physic. With hunters, the change of food and work alters the case. They may need one dose, or three, or more than three, or none. The practice of giving a full course to all, without discrimination, as if there were some magical property in the number three, is too absurd to merit notice. Physic is not one of those simples in which quackery deals. Its power to do evil is at least as great as its power to do good.

Composition Of Physic

There are many articles which purge the horse; but, upon almost every occasion, Barbadoes aloes is preferred. It is easily given, and the proper dose is well known or easily regulated. It purges with more certainty, and with less danger, than any of the articles which are sometimes used in its place. The aloes are powdered, and formed into a tough, solid mass, soft enough to swallow. Common or Castile soap is generally used for this purpose. One of soap, to two of aloes, is about the proportion. Other ingredients are sometimes added; but, to produce purgation, nothing is wanted but the aloes. On hunting and racing establishments, the head groom usually compounds the physic himself. It may be procured ready made, in any strength, from the veterinarian or the druggist. A full dose varies from four drachms to nine Yearling colts require about 4; ponies from 5 to 6; saddle, hunting, and draught horses from 7 to 8; thoroughbreds from 6 to 9. These last when well prepared may be purged by six drachms; but when in work they may require nine.

Horses of narrow chest and light carcass, re* quire less than those of round barrel.