PHYSIC
—is a term sometimes given (particularly in the country) to every kind of MEDICINE that can be administered to either MAN or HORSE: the more polished and general acceptation confines it solely to the operation of PURGING, in which sense alone it can be properly understood. It is but a few years (since the appearance of "The Gentleman's Stable Directory,") that the general necessity for, and palpable utility of, occasionally PHYSICING HORSES, became almost universally admitted. Its salutary effects stand, however, upon too firm a basis to be again shaken by the obtrusion of speculative opinions: there are but few, if any, remaining, who will presume to arraign or challenge the consistency of annually cleansing full thirty yards of the intestinal canal, replete with INTERSTICES, and appropriated to little other purpose than the excretion of filth.
Physic is prepared of different proportions, and of different ingredients, according to the purposes for which it may be designed. If only to soften and remove the accumulated contents of the bowels, and prevent PLETHORA, and its probable effects, the MILDEST degree will be sufficient. If the carcase is evidently enlarged, the vessels perceptibly distended, the horse dull, heavy, and inactive, a STRONGER must be brought into use. In cutaneous diseases, SWELLED LEGS of long standing, tendency to GREASE, old obstinate COUGHS and WORMS, mercurial physic had better be adopted; letting the extra care be proportioned to the mildness or severity of the season in which it is given. Under judicious and proper management, there is no more danger in the operation of MERCURIAL than in any other physic, provided it is faithfully prepared, and of the proportions by which safety is in a great degree to be insured; but if given in immoderate quantities, and little attended to during the progress of its operation, danger and death may probably ensue. Neither one, or the other, are, however, known to happen, where a proper degree of circumspection is used by those whose business it is to superintend the subordinates.