ACRIMONY
—is a state of the blood disposed to only certain degrees of disease, by the quantity of serum becoming too great for the proportion of crassamentum, with which, in its state of active fluidity, it is combined for the purpose of regular circulation, so invariably necessary to the standard of health. Blood thus divested of its adhesive property, soon displays in HORSES a tendency to what are termed acrimonious diseases, originating in, and dependent upon, the impoverished state to which it is reduced. Hence arises a train of trouble and disquietude more vexatious than alarming, more troublesome than expensive; as cracked heels; cutaneous eruptions of the dry and scurfy kind; a dingy, variegated, unhealthy hue of the coat; and frequently a seemingly half starved contraction of the CREST. These palpable effects of acrimony in the blood, are produced much more by the penury and indifference of the master, (or the neglect of his servant,) than any disposition to disease in the horse. Experience has sufficiently proved, that a sufficient quantity of proper and healthy food is so indispensably requisite for the support of the frame, and every office of the animal œconomy, that a want of such due supply must be productive of acrimony in a greater or a less degree; to obtund which, and counteract its effects, recourse must be had to alimentary invigorants and antimonial alteratives, as will be found more medically explained in "The Gentleman's Stable Directory;" or, "Taplin's Compendium of Farriery."