The salt which is sold under this name in Glasgow, is brought from Cheshire, and is employed chiefly for cattle. It is procured in large masses, of a stony hardness. It is somewhat different from common salt, of which, however, it contains 983 parts in 1,000; the rest is sulphate of lime, muriate of lime, muriate of magnesia, and some insoluble matter. It is not likely that these make it different to the horse from common salt. It is better, only, I believe, because it can be obtained in a solid form. Most of the coach proprietors in this neighborhood give it to their horses all the year round, and they give no other. It is not mixed with the food. A lump, weighing perhaps two or three pounds, is placed in the manger; when all consumed, it is replaced by another piece. With few exceptions the horses seem to be very fond of it; some always refuse it; and many reject it at one time, who greedily devour it at another. Those that have not been used to the salt, are apt to eat a large quantity on the first day, and, in general, these are slightly purged on the next. Afterward, instead of eating the salt, the horse contents himself with licking it. The permanent result is not always apparent. In very many cases I have never been able to trace either good or evil to its use.

In some there has been a remarkable change, the lean and spiritless becoming plump and animated.

Nitre, I have said, is frequently given in boiled food. Many foolish stablemen keep it constantly by them as an article of indispensable utility. They say it cools the blood, and takes away swellings of the legs.

Nitre is a diuretic of considerable power, and like all others, tends to reduce watery swellings, such as those to which the legs of horses are subject when they stand much in the house, when they are too highly fed, and when the legs are not sufficiently hand-rubbed. It excites the kidneys to secrete more urine: the urine is a certain portion of the blood, and, to replace what is lost by the kidneys, that which is superfluous about the legs or the sheath is taken up. To speak of nitre cooling the blood is nonsense, very evident to any body not very ignorant. [It promotes evacuation by the kidneys and skin, and by reducing the system, it acts to cool.

It is anti-febrile. To the human patient it is administered as a febrifuge.]

As an article of constant or frequent use it ought to be abolished. In large quantities, it weakens a working-horse precisely in the same way that heated oats and musty hay weaken him. In smaller, but more frequent doses, it injures the kidneys [by reaction when omitted], and renders them unable to throw off all the superfluous and watery portion of the blood; this, when not evacuated in the shape of urine, is deposited in the legs, the sheath, and other parts; hence the constant use of nitre ultimately produces the evils it is at first given to cure. An occasional dose to a half-worked, full-fed horse may do good, particularly when he is to stand idle on the following day. When the grain or hay is not very good, and is apt to excite diabetes, no diuretic medicines should aver be given but under the directions of a professional man. A veterinarian was once called to examine some horses that were sadly emaciated from the staling evil. The hay was bad; but it was changed, and other measures taken to arrest the disease. They appeared to have the desired effect always till Sunday, when all the horses became nearly as ill as ever. At last it was discovered that the man put two pounds of nitre among the boiled food every Saturday night. This explained the repeated relapse.

The fellow pretended to be a foreman - to know, not only his own business, but also something about the veterinarian's.