How can we expect to cure horses with poisons?
How get them into condition, by depriving them of their blood?
A gentleman of high standing in society, and well known in the sporting world, having, some years since, derived great advantage from the Water-cure, determined on trying its effects upon animals, by becoming his own veterinary surgeon; the consequence is, that for five or six years he has not spent one shilling upon drugs of any kind. On being applied to for his opinion as to the effect of the treatment upon horses, he favored the author with a letter of which the following is an extract:
“With respect to the treatment of horses, my groom can give no information, excepting indeed, that he can verify the good effect of the treatment insisted upon by myself; and such is his prejudice (exactly similar to that of the Medical Profession) that he would, I am sure, revert to his former practices if he dared. But I can most safely affirm that the effect of the Hydro-therapeutic Treatment of Horses, is most wonderful. I have, with coach horses and hacks, say forty horses. I never allow of any bleeding or physic. When the hunters are to be prepared for the season, two or three of a day are whisped over with cold water, a linen cloth of fifteen or sixteen yards in length, dipped in cold water and well wrung out, is then lapped round from their heads to their tails, covered over with rugs, and bound pretty close by surcingles: thus they remain for an hour or so, when they are again rubbed over with cold water, followed by rubbing with dry cloth or whisps quite dry, and then sent out to exercise for twenty-five minutes, or half an hour. This treatment is continued twice or thrice a week, for at least half a dozen times; and I’ll venture to say that nobody’s horses can look, or go better; and they never ail. I will just relate one fact. I bought a horse for Mrs. —— seven or eight years ago, a most excellent lady’s horse, but he coughed so badly (always) three or four years since, that we thought she would be obliged to give him up, he has been treated as above for two years; I rode him a gallop a few days ago, when he had not a symptom of cough. Many dealers have been through my stable:—Smart, Elmore, etc. etc., and they have all adopted my plan of bandaging the legs of their horses, which I do for two days after a day’s work; and as Elmore said last spring, they looked ‘as if they were going to begin a season instead of ending one,’ so clear were their legs.
“If a new horse (which is often the case) comes down by railroad, he generally gets a sore throat and cold, this, I need not tell you, is soon got rid of, as above.”—May 4, 1848.
The following extract is from a letter to the author—written by a gentleman whose health has been re-established by the Water-cure; who, during the last forty years, has been the possessor of hundreds of horses, and is said to be one of the best judges of a horse in England.
“I will not defer answering your interesting letter, although I know not that I can write anything to be of much use to you. The manner in which I have treated my horses for the last thirty years is as follows:—If it is in my power I always bring a horse in cool, my groom first puts a common watering bridle on, takes one girth off, and slackens the other, the reason why I do not remove the saddle immediately is, because the back becomes tender; the horse is then taken into the pond, the boy holding up his own legs, the higher the water gets towards the back the better; that is, let the animal go as deep into water as he can, not to swim; this takes two or three minutes, then two men take scrapers, and with these press out the dripping water, after this, with straw whisps, the animal is washed for about ten minutes, he is then covered up with two blankets, and his legs bandaged; the ears are now well rubbed and pulled until dry: this is all I do to a horse. He does not break out into cold perspirations during the night, and next morning he is perfectly clean. By putting your hands under the blankets when he is done up for the night, you will find a genial warmth pervading the whole body. Blood horses, however fatigued, are usually very sensitive to the brush and whisp, consequently cleaning tires them still more, which causes them almost always to break out into cold sweats. The ventilation which ought to be at the top of the stable, must be good, otherwise the system works ill. Owing to the unusual good health that I have had in my stable, I was led to think most seriously of applying water in a similar way to the human subject, so that after reading your book, I became at once a confirmed Hydropathist. Many people will say, my system was that pursued in the post-horse stables; but the contrary is the fact. The post horse was washed, and his heels clipped close, and left to dry without friction, evaporation was great, grease and other maladies attacked the animal. I know a coach master who saved £400 per annum by giving up washing upon this old plan. You have now got the result of my experience. I have had fewer roarers than most men for the number of horses in my possession, in fact, only two, one of these went so, when lent and out of my stable. The loss in valuable horses from roaring is enormous. I think a friend of mine lost £700 in one season from roarers, I have the confidence to think that had he pursued the Water-system all his horses would have been saved. Be assured, water is as applicable to the animal as the human subject—fever is the bane of the one as much as the other, and water is the antidote. Why are cart-horses so much healthier than higher fed horses? simply because the former live much more after nature than the other. A cart-horse goes to a pond and drinks what he likes, not so with the blood horse, he must only have a certain quantity, and this at stated periods; this I conceive to be wrong, and have in consequence for the last six years always kept buckets of water in the horses’ boxes, so that they might drink when they liked. My friends have often said, ‘But you do not allow them thus to drink when going to hunt?’ ‘Certainly’ was my reply: if the animal always has access to water, he never distends his stomach, and by constantly sipping, fever is kept down. We do all we can to encourage fever, and then have recourse to strong drastics and bleeding! Constant water cools the animal, and the gentle sweats, which the blankets produce, operate as safety valves.”—January 5, 1848.
When in Ireland, visiting the far-famed dairy farm of Mr. Jefferies, in the neighbourhood of Cork, I was informed by the bailiff, that out of every seven cows attacked with an epidemic which raged at that time, on an average five had died, and that the loss on that estate had not been less than 2000l. On my suggesting hydropathic treatment, the bailiff said that some time ago a traveller by that means had cured him of rheumatism; this determined him on trying it upon the cows: success crowned his efforts; instead of losing five out of seven, he saved seven out of nine; this treatment, however, at once so novel and so troublesome, he found extremely difficult to prosecute, servants could not be induced to use the necessary friction, or endure the toil which a number of sick animals entail: this, together with the discouragement and ridicule thrown upon his proceedings by the veterinary surgeon, caused him to desist. The following is a letter which I subsequently read from the bailiff—
“Dear Sir—I am most anxious to communicate with you as to the efficacy of the cold-water cure, when applied to cattle affected with the late epidemic.
“About six months ago, I had it tried on nine head of horned cattle; seven out of the nine recovered, and are now doing well. I feel quite confident that, if the cure be generally known, and properly applied, much may be done in the recovering of diseased cattle.