Opinions opposite to each other have always prevailed upon the treatment necessary and proper with horses of this description. That authority must be enforced, fortitude exerted, patience persevered in, and submission obtained, are all positions too firmly admitted, and acquiesced in, to admit of contrariety; but experience has fully demonstrated, that great points are sometimes effected by the salutary interposition of equanimity and moderation, that never could be accomplished by the frequently destructive gusts of inconsiderate passion and unmanly violence. If a horse, disposed to be restive, is addicted to running backwards, the best and only remedy is to continue backing him (if there is room for the experiment) till he becomes completely averse to his own undertaking; or procuring a person to come suddenly upon him behind, during his retrograde motion, with a complete flagellation from a cart or hunting whip, which seldom or ever fails to set such a one running from the effect of fear, and to produce a complete eradication.
Horses rearing up on end, so as to stand nearly perpendicular upon their hind legs, is the most dangerous of any description, even to the most judicious, expert, and experienced horseman; who has, in such aukward predicament, (particularly when a horse most viciously repeats it,) no alternative, but to slacken his reins, and lean his body close to the neck, the better to expedite so critical a preponderation. Horses inclined to run away, from an impetuosity of temper, and an eagerness to get forward, frequently alarm their riders, if they are exceedingly irritable upon the score of timidity, or terrified upon the principle of inexperience; but sportsmen mostly prefer horses who require the curb, to those who want a spur, well knowing the utility of moderately dropping the hand, and indulging the loose occasionally; as a dead pull at a hard-mouthed run-away horse, is the sure means of making him endeavour to continue his career the longer.
VIPER, BITE of
.—See Venomous Bites.
VISCIDITY of the BLOOD
—is that state in which the blood is frequently known, when, by a collapsion of the pores, (from some of those causes which produce colds, coughs, and inflammatory diseases,) it acquires a preternatural consistence from the external repulsion of the perspirative matter, which, thrown upon the circulation, constitutes a siziness of the blood: this, by its retention, becomes so viscid and adhesive, (or tough,) that, when it has been drawn off by bleeding, and set by two or three hours to cool, it is with difficulty separated upon the surface, even with the sharpest penknife. Horses having their blood in a state too sizy and viscid for the perfect purposes of secretion and health, soon display it in some way or other: a heaviness of the head, a dulness of the eyes, a lassitude of the body, a husky tendency to cough, a rough harshness in the coat, a swelling of the legs, or cracks in the heels, (particularly if it happens in the winter season,) are some of the indications by which it may be readily known, and should be speedily counteracted. Unloading the vessels, by twice bleeding, about ten days apart, attenuating the crassamentum of the blood by mild diuretics, and altering its property by a short course of alterative powders, will prove all that is necessary to promote and ensure condition.
VIVES
—is a disorder so similar to the strangles, that the leading symptoms (at the commencement of the attack) are nearly the same; with this difference only, that in the strangles the tumefactions are centrically situate in the concavity of the under jaw, just below the gullet; and in the vives, the swellings are seated at the roots of the ears, descending more or less towards the neck. These differ in different subjects, as in some they do not suppurate; but by warmth, and emollient unguents, applied twice or thrice a day, are absorbed into the circulation, and are then to be taken out of the habit by a gentle course of mercurial physic; but where the swelling and inflammation are evidently too great for repulsion and absorption, suppuration must be promoted by the means described, and the case treated as will be found under the head Strangles.
VIXEN
.—A bitch fox, or a female cub, is so called.