out on a heated brass plate or dish. The calcination of antimony, in order to procure transparent glass, succeeds very slowly, unless the operator be wary and circumspect in the management of it. The most convenient vessel is a broad shallow dish, or smooth flat tile, placed under a chimney. The antimony should be the purer sort, such as is usually found at the apex of the canes; this, grossly powdered, is to be evenly spread over the bottom of the pan, so as not to lie above a quarter of an inch thick upon any part. The fire should be at first, no greater than is just sufficient to raise a fume from the antimony, which is to be now and then stirred; when the fumes begin to decay, increase the heat, taking care not to raise it so high as to melt the antimony, or to run the powder into lumps. After some time, the vessel may be made red-hot, and kept in that state, until the matter will not, on being stirred, any longer fume. If this part of the process be duly conducted, the antimony will appear in an uniform powder, without any lumps, and of a grey colour. With this powder, fill two-thirds of a crucible, which is to be covered with a tile, and placed in a wind furnace. Gradually increase the heat until the calx be in perfect fusion, when it is to be occasionally examined by dipping a clean iron wire in it. If the matter which adheres to the end of the wire appears smooth and equally transparent, the vitrification is completed, and the glass may be poured out on a hot smooth stone or copper plate, and suffered to cool slowly, to prevent its cracking and flying in pieces. It is of a transparent yellowish red colour. CERATED GLASS OF ANTIMONY. Take of yellow wax, a drachm; glass of antimony, reduced into a powder, one ounce. Melt the wax in an iron vessel, and throw into it powdered glass; keep the mixture over a gentle fire for half an hour, continually stirring it; then pour it out upon paper, and when cold, grind it into powder. The glass melts in the wax with a very gentle heat. After it has been about twenty minutes on the fire, it begins to change its colour, and in ten minutes more, comes near to that of Scotch snuff, which is a mark of its being sufficiently prepared. The above quantity loses a about drachm of its weight in the process. In the human subject, this medicine was for some time much esteemed in dysenteries. The dose given is from two or three grains to twenty, according to the age and strength of the patient. The foregoing are the different preparations of antimony, but the two that are most useful in veterinary medicine, are the butter of antimony and the emetic tartar. The first is an excellent and safe escharotic, and the last is a useful diaphoretic, and is given with the best effect in all inflammatory complaints, especially in inflammation of the lungs. CLYSTERS SERVE not only to evacuate the contents of the intestines, but also to convey very powerful medicines into the system, when perhaps it is not practicable to do it by the mouth; for although clysters are only conveyed into the larger intestines, and, perhaps, hardly penetrate into the smaller, still they are extremely useful by fomenting, as it were, the latter, and at the same time by softening the hardened excrement that is accumulated in the former, and rendering it so soft as to be expelled out of the body, by which flatulencies, or other offending matters that may be pent up in them, are likewise expelled; besides, by their warmth and relaxing powers, they act as a fomentation to the bowels, and hence may be of considerable service in removing spasmodic constrictions in the bowels, carrying off flatulencies, and in preventing inflammation in the intestines; and by conveying opiates to the parts affected, give speedy relief to colics, &c. The use of emollient clysters in fevers is considerable; they act by revulsion, and relieve the head when much affected; besides, by throwing in a quantity of diluting liquor in the intestines, it not only relaxes and cleanses them, but they may be said to cool the body in general; at the same time a considerable portion of the liquid is absorbed and conveyed into the mass of blood, by which means it is diluted, and in particular complaints of the bowels, clysters give almost immediate relief. These remedies, when judiciously employed, pass directly to the parts affected, as they undergo little or no alteration from the powers of the body. The diseases of horses are cured on nearly the same principle as those of the human body. The doctrines laid down by physicians for the cure of diseases in the latter are applicable to horses in similar circumstances; only it ought to be observed, for obvious reasons, that the intestines of horses should always be emptied of dung by the repetition of clysters, which have something stimulating in their composition, previous to the administering any particular medicine by way of a clyster. Nor is the use of clysters confined to medicines only; food and nourishment may be conveyed into the system in this, when a horse is unable to swallow any thing by the mouth. This I have frequently experienced in practice, and I have supported horses for several days together by nourishing clysters made of thick water-gruel, during violent inflammations of the throat, until such time as they have been either discussed or suppurated. The lacteal vessels, the mouths of which open into the inner cavity of the intestines, absorb, or drink up, the chyle or nourishment that is produced from the food that has been digested, and convey it into the mass of blood. The same process takes place when nourisnment is conveyed into the intestines by the auus, or fundament, only the food require to be so far prepared and broken down, and diluted with water, as to render it fit to be absorbed by the vessels mentioned above. In administering clysters, it ought always to be observed, that the contents of the clyster be neither too hot nor too cold, and only milk-warm; as either of these extremes will surprise the horse, and cause him to eject or throw it out before it has had time to have any effect. Previous to introducing the clyster-pipe, the operator, after anointing his hand and arm with oil, butter, or hog's-lard, (observing at the same time that the nails of his fingers are short,) may introduce it into the rectum and draw out the hardened dung gradually. This operation in farriery, is termed raking, or back raking, and becomes the more necessary, as it frequently happens that great quantities of hardened dung are collected in the rectum, and which, in some cases, the horse cannot void easily without assistance of this kind. The composition of clysters should be extremely simple. On that account they will be easily prepared, and as easily administered, if the operator is provided with a suitable instrument for the purpose. The generality of clyster-pipes that are commonly used, are by far too short and too small. Although it may appear a paradox, yet it is a fact, that a clyster-pipe of a larger size than the ordinary ones, and of a proper thickness, is much easier introduced into the anus than one that is considerably smaller. It is likewise obvious, that when the pipe is too short, it renders clysters of no use, because it cannot convey them so far into the intestines as is necessary to give them any chance of being retained; a small short pipe of six or eight inches long, is not capable of conveying the injection to the end of the rectum, which in a horse of middle size, is about seventeen or eighteen inches long. In giving injections with these short pipes, the clyster is apt to flow out at the anus in proportion to the force with which it is injected from the bag, or syringe, and this must always be the case, especially if the horse's bladder should happen at the same time to be full of urine, which frequently occurs from its being retained there by the hardened dung in the rectum, which presses against the neck of the bladder, and thus prevents the horse from staling. It happens, further, that after the hardened dung is taken out of the rectum by the operation abovementioned, the bladder, being distended, and full of urine, cannot exert its contracting power imme |