TARTAR EMETIC
—is one of the most powerful, and, in respect to horses, one of the most prostituted medicines in the whole MATERIA MEDICA: its name here is only introduced, and its properties described, that the SPORTING WORLD, as well as individuals, may be sufficiently guarded against its dangerous effects, if injudiciously administered, or secretly brought into use, by practitioners of little knowledge, and less celebrity, who, knowing no more of its preparation than its name, know less of its effects than its preparation. With farriers or veterinarians of this description, it is become a favourite medicine upon so many occasions, that it stands entitled to a fair, candid, and unequivocal investigation. Emetic tartar, when administered to the human frame, with a design of producing the forcible effect of a strong emetic, has never, by professional men, of the most learned, distinguished, and experienced ability, exceeded six or seven; and in truly critical cases of dangerous emergency, eight grains may have been given. Ten grains have been known to operate so violently as to excite convulsions; twelve, to occasion DEATH.
Amidst such incontrovertible facts, it naturally becomes a serious consideration, that men, knowing nothing of the property of medicine, should have the unrestrained privilege and permission of bringing into use articles of so much dangerous magnitude, not only without knowing their basis, preparation, and peculiar properties, but without the power of prognosticating their probable effects. It is a circumstance worthy the attention of those possessing a number of horses for either business or pleasure, (who must consequently have some occasionally labouring under disease,) how far it may be safe, proper, consistent, or discreet, to give a horse half an ounce of TARTAR EMETIC at one dose, which, according to the above ascertained facts, will, if divided accurately into equal proportions, (and the experiments made,) take away the lives of twenty men. Those who have ignorantly adopted this practice, as ignorantly and obstinately assert the impossibility of its doing any harm; without either not possessing the knowledge, or not giving themselves time to recollect, that if seven or eight grains will distress and exhaust the human frame, by every kind of violent and sensible evacuation, to the appearance of, and in some cases to actual death; what must be the internally destructive ravages of twenty (or thirty) times that quantity, thrown into the frame of an animal, who, not having, like the human species, power to regurgitate, or throw off the offending consequence by vomit, has no alternative, but to stand a comparative barrel of combustibles, ready to burst with the effervescent conflagration raised within, and which must, in a variety of cases, be evidently productive of certain death. But such practitioners have no character to support, no reputation to lose; and they likewise well know, that dead horses, any more than dead men, tell no tales.