able: Nerve and marsh-mallow ointment, of each two ounces; quicksilver, one ounce, thoroughly mingled with one ounce of Venice turpentine; Spanish flies, powdered, a dram and a half; sublimate, one dram; oil of origanum, two drams.
When the hair is cut as close as possible, the ointment is to be applied pretty thick to the injured part, in the morning, and the horse should be kept tied up without any litter till night. He should then be untied, that he may lie down, and a pitch plaster fastened to the part, with a proper bandage.
After the blister has done running, and the scabs begin to peel off, another may be applied, which will have a still better effect; and in young horses, will generally complete the cure. But if the spavin has been of long standing, a repetition of the blister five or six times, will perhaps be requisite. Each application must be made at intervals of a fortnight or three weeks, lest the blemish of a scar, or baldness, remain on the part.
Spavins on old or full-aged horses, as they grow more inward, and run among the sinuosities of the joint, are, for the most part, incurable.
In such cases, the strongest caustic blisters must be applied, or the part immediately fired; but the best and safest way to preserve the use of the limb is, by long-repeated applications of the above-mentioned blistering ointment, for some months, if necessary. The horse, in the intervals, should be exercised moderately; and by degrees the hardness will be dissolved, and disappear.
If the spavin is deep, and runs so far into the joint that no application can reach it, all medicines will be unavailing. When the disease does not penetrate the joint, and the blistering method is found ineffectual, the swelling may be safely cauterized with a thin iron, forced pretty deeply into the substance; and it should afterwards be dressed according to the foregoing directions.
BOOK, a general name for most literary compositions; but should, with propriety, be applied to such productions only as extend to the size of a volume.
The writings of Moses are allowed to be the most ancient of any extant; but as several are cited by this author, some must undoubtedly have been written previous to his time. The oldest books of a profane nature, with which we are acquainted, are Homer's Poems ; though the Greek authors mention no less than seventy other writers prior to Homer.
The materials used by the ancients instead of paper, were of various kinds; as plates of lead and copper, the bark of trees, bricks, stone, wood, &c. Instead of wooden tablets, the leaves of the palm-tree were afterwards used, and the inner part of the bark of the lime, the ash, the maple, and the elm: as these could be rolled up, they received the name of volumen, or a volume, which appellation was afterwards transferred to similar rolls of paper, or parchment.
The material next introduced for the purpose of transmitting the records of the learned to posterity, was wax; and afterwards leather, or the skins of goats and sheep, which at length were manufactured into parchment: these were succeeded by lead, linen, silk, horn,
