opinion as to its use, besides being in the dark as to what drugs, secretly given by the said man before, may have caused the disease, which, however, will be attributed to anything but his own act.
There are yet other ‘remedies’ kept by all stablemen. They are used more openly, and are even highly approved of by some owners. First amongst these rank ‘hoof-ointments,’ be they either a ‘secret’ with the stablemen, or a ‘patent’—it does not make much difference which, as to their nonutility, or, rather, their positive insalubrity. They almost always consist of admixtures of some or all of the following ingredients:—Tar, bees-wax, train oil, tallow or suet, and honey. Mr. Douglas says that if applications of this kind were made daily instead of occasionally, no horse would have a morsel of sound horn at the end of six months to nail a shoe to: ‘for it shuts up the pores in the horn, prevents the natural moisture from reaching the surface outwardly, and the air from circulating inwards—consequences which act upon the horse with ruinous results.’ ‘If you tell a groom this, he will either refuse to listen to your arguments, or laugh at them as being the height of absurdity.’ How many horse owners are on a level with their servants in this matter!
Cowdung, mixed sometimes with some of the above-mentioned abominations, is firmly believed in by servants, and its use condoned by their masters, for ‘stopping’—that is to say, stuffing the hoof with—up (or down) to the level of the bottom of the
