ALE
,—the good old healthy English beverage, brewed from malt, hops and water, alone, with no intoxicating or deleterious articles of adulteration. It is an excellent extemporaneous substitute for gruel, in cases of emergency with horses, where it is required as a vehicle in which to dissolve and administer medicine to prevent delay, as in cholic, strangury, &c.
ALOES
—is a resinous gum, extracted from the tree whose name it bears, and is brought to us chiefly from the island of Barbadoes. The shops produce two sorts, called Succotrine and Barbadoes; the former of which is the mildest; but the latter most in use, to insure the certainty of operation. It is the principal ingredient in purging balls for horses.
ALTERATIVES
.—Medicines are so called which constitute an effect upon the system, or an alteration in the property of the blood, without any sensible internal or visible external operation. Upon their introduction to the stomach, they become incorporated with its contents; and their medical properties being taken up by the chyle, is conveyed through the lymphatics to the blood-vessels, where it becomes a part of the blood itself, which being fully impregnated with the neutralizing property of the article administered as an alterative, possesses the power of obtunding acrimony, and restraining tendency to disease.
Of all the classes of medicines, none can be more proper or applicable than alteratives, to those who cannot make it convenient to let their horses undergo a regular routine of purgation at the accustomed seasons; as during the administration of alteratives (mercurials excepted) a horse may go through the same occasional work, and diurnal discipline, as if he was under no course of medicine whatever. The alteratives most deservedly esteemed, are antimony, sulphur, nitre, (in small quantities,) cream of tartar, Æthiops mineral, and the antimonial alterative powders of the Author, to be found in the list of his medicines at the conclusion of the Work.
ALUM
—is an article too well known in the shops, to require farther description, than its medical utility, when, upon any emergency, it may be advantageously brought into use. Reduced to fine powder, and applied as a styptic to the mouths of divided vessels, to stop the effusion of blood, it will be found very efficacious. Dissolved in water, the proportion of one ounce to a pint, it is an infallible cure for the foul white specks, or little watery pustules, so frequently seen in the mouths of horses, (and supposed to arise from internal heat,) the parts being twice or thrice touched with a piece of fine sponge, properly moistened with the solution. Burnt alum, finely powdered, and sprinkled, very lightly, upon the fungous flesh of old or foul wounds, will speedily reduce it, and promote the cure.