—in a horse (whether in one or both eyes) may originate in a variety of well-known causes, many of which are occasioned by means of violence, and may at all times be prevented by proper care and humane attention. If a horse, having naturally good eyes, is observed to undergo a sudden change in the external appearance, from enlargement of the lids, or a discharge of hot watery serum, with a visible heat and pain of the part, (the horse constantly shaking his head and ears,) it may reasonably be attributed to some cause originating in external injury: if not by such means, it must be from some morbid affection in the system, acting more immediately and powerfully upon the most irritable parts.
The eyes of some horses are periodically affected, even for months and years, before they terminate in total blindness: to this species of ocular defect, the illiterate and less enlightened of former times gave the appellation of "moon-blind," under the weak and ridiculous idea, that such changes were produced by the gradational stages of the moon; an opinion too trifling to render animadversion necessary, it being one of the very few remaining traits of superstition which will speedily be totally done away. Many horses lose their eyes from extreme exertion, as by over racing; in proof of which, a very long list of instances might be adduced: the same effect has been produced upon STALLIONS in being permitted to cover mares not only in an unlimited degree in respect to number, but stimulated so to do by the use of powerful and prejudicial provocatives: in both these cases the loss of sight is occasioned by a total subversion of the nervous system, reducing it to a fixed or partial debility of those particular parts, from which they never recover.
Horses are frequently found to inherit constitutional defects from SIRE or DAM; and none are, perhaps, to be considered more justly hereditary than defects of the eyes; and to render such fact the more extraordinary, it generally happens to have lain dormant for the first three or four years, and never to display itself to any visible inconvenience till a colt is broke, and brought into work. The eyes of a horse inheriting this taint by hereditary transmission, are much less prominent than a natural, well-formed and good eye; they have a kind of indented furrow in the lid above the orb, and a wrinkled contraction in the part immediately over that, constituting a kind of "vinegar aspect," better conceived than described: this kind of eye should be carefully avoided in purchase; for however they may vary by changes in work, and a diversity of seasons, they, nine times out of ten, terminate in blindness; a circumstance fairly to be presumed, no professional man living can prevent.
BLISTERING
—is an operation performed upon a horse by unguents prepared of different degrees of strength, according to the circumstances of the case. They are in general use for blood and bone spavins, curbs and strains of the back sinews: where they do not complete the purpose for which they were intended, they are repeated at a proper period; or firing the part is adopted, and the horse is turned out. Blistering is in general too soon resorted to as a remedy, and in many cases before the inflammation arising from the original injury has sufficiently subsided for the operation to take place; from which injudicious mode of practice, a permanent enlargement of the part is occasioned, that is never got rid of during the life of the horse.
BLOOD
—is the well known fluid issuing from wounds, or separated vessels, in an accidental destruction of parts: it is not only the very basis, but the support, of life itself; and drawn from the frame of any animal beyond a certain proportion (professionally ascertained,) causes instant death. In the regular routine of the animal œconomy, blood is generated by the frequent supplies of nutritive aliment, and retaining within itself sufficient strength and power for its own peculiar purposes, throws off, by the different emunctories, the superflux with which it may be encumbered: but as medical or anatomical disquisition is not intended in a work of this general kind, it must suffice to observe, that, from the blood in its original and first formed state, proceeds all the progressive and superior functions of Nature. From the blood issues every gradational proportion of insensible, sensible and profuse perspiration; from the blood, the urine is secreted (or separated) by the kidnies; and from the blood is extracted, by the genitals, that very masculine semen, by which (we are told from high and indisputable authority) our posterity is to be continued to the end of time.
BLOOD HOUNDS
.—Those so called, have always had a kind of fabulous property ascribed to them, of pursuing, and infallibly taking or seizing, robbers, murderers, or depredators, whenever they could be laid upon the footsteps (or scent) of the particular object they were intended to pursue; and of their possessing this property there can be no doubt, when the experience of ages, transmitted to us by our predecessors, (as well as our own observations,) have afforded the most indisputable proofs, that hounds may be taught or broke in to carry on any particular scent, when feelingly convinced they are to hunt no other. There requires no "ghost from the grave" to confirm a fact of so much notoriety: a mere sporting embryo would tell us, that "a pack who for some years hunted fallow deer in the possession of their last owner, are hunting hare in high style with the present; that the principal body of the celebrated pack who for some years past hunted fox with Lord Darlington in the north, are now probably destined to the pursuit of the red deer with Lord Derby in the south: and the whole art of changing hounds from one chase to another is the temporary trouble of breaking them afresh, and making them steady to the scent they are to pursue."
In respect to the received opinion of what were formerly called bloodhounds, the fact is simply this: the original stock partook, in nearly an equal degree, of the large, heavy, strong, boney old English stag-hound, and the deep-mouthed southern hound, of which mention is made under the head "Beagle." The hounds destined to one particular kind of business or pursuit, as bloodhounds, were never brought into the chase for a constancy with the pack for the promotion of sport, but were preserved and supported (as a constable or Bow-Street runner of the present day) for the purposes of pursuit and detection, whenever they could, with certainty, be laid on in good time upon the scent of footsteps of the object it was thought expedient to pursue. Deer stealing, for instance, was so very common a century since to what it is at present, that the GAME and PARK keepers in most parts of the kingdom were in a kind of eternal watching and nocturnal warfare: the hounds we are now describing were then constantly trained to the practice, and so closely adhered to the scent they were once laid on upon, that (even after a very long and tedious pursuit) detection was certain and inevitable: from this persevering instinct and infallibility, they acquired the appellation they have so long retained; and an offending criminal not a century since, was absolutely conceived to be positively taken, and half convicted, the very moment a blood-hound could be obtained.