Page:Horses and roads.djvu/34

 18 secretly administered to an alarming extent—not sufficiently to kill the horses right off, but sufficiently to undermine their constitutions.

If veterinary authorities should be read, the following dicta will be found having reference to the foregoing remarks:— ‘inflamed bladder: cause—abuse of medicine;’  ‘inflamed kidneys:  cause—nitre.’ The innocent (?) and phlegmatic owners either are ignorant that their men are making use of these agents, or else indolently satisfy themselves by remarking that their ‘man’ understands horses very well and that ‘if he does not bring them round, no one else can;’ until things get serious and the vet. has to be called in. When this gentleman is sent for, he has generally a serious case to deal with, and one that usually lasts a long time, and, consequently, entails a severe loss.

Besides this, many owners knowingly allow their men to order powerful medicines in the shape of ‘balls’ called ‘physic,’ ‘condition,’ ‘diuretic,’ &c., and allow their men to give them to the horses, having, at the same time, very little or no control as to when or why they should be given. Now these cost more than arsenic, &c., and could be more easily accounted for, because the men rarely go so far as to lay out their own money on them, and the owner thinks some medicine must be necessary in a stable; yet even then he is generally guilty of allowing or even asking his man an unmerited