LOOSENESS
—is a laxity of habit, or debility of the intestines, which is constitutional with some horses; but in others is the effect of temporary disease; produced, probably, by an effervescent putrefaction of the excrements too long locked up in the intestinal canal, and at length suddenly and forcibly expelled by an effort of Nature, to relieve herself from the offending cause. This latter is the kind of looseness not to be immediately checked, or restrained, by the aid of aromatic restringents; but rather to be assisted, and promoted, by a free use of warm mashes, and gruel, till the disorder has run itself off, and effected its own cure. Some horses are habitually irritable, and begin to dung loose upon the most trifling occasions: young horses sometimes do so from a stranger's approaching them suddenly after coming from a DEALER'S stable; this must arise from the memory of the whip: others from being put into expeditious action upon the road too soon after their water in a morning. Horses fond of HOUNDS, and eager in the chase, will frequently begin to purge at the place of meeting, and continue so to do half a dozen times within an hour, when the superflux being thrown off, the excrements again become firm, and are evacuated with their usual solidity during the whole of the day. A warm cordial ball before the water, for two or three mornings in succession, is generally all that is necessary to be done upon such occasions.