To escape the loss of so large a piece of property as a living horse, it is imperative the notion should be abandoned which asserts that because the horse can swallow most opening medicines with impunity, a strong purgative cannot otherwise than benefit the animal; the deduction is not fairly drawn. But not to follow up too closely so lame a prey: aloes is the general purgative in the stable; it is a drug which should never be intrusted to the hands of the groom. The difference between the necessary and the poisonous dose is too close for the uneducated to comprehend it; more horses have been slaughtered with aloes than have perished from all the other poisons conjoined. Yet grooms are particularly fond of this medicine; the dangerous drug enters into every ball which is popular in the stable; no matter how opposite the end desired may be, in the groom's opinion aloes must produce it. Like the majority of the uneducated, the stable-man rejoices in a strong purge. Tenesmus is his delight; he loves to see sixteen or eighteen full motions, and then he cannot comprehend why the horse is weak, since the physic passed beautifully through him! Of all persons living, grooms generally are the most prejudiced and the worst informed. All advice is disregarded; should the master speak, the groom shakes his head, and, after the lecture is ended, inquires of himself, "what the old buffer can know about it?" Here is the curse of horses! Gentlemen transfer them to the custody of the uneducated. The groom is accepted as an authority; the master asks for and is mostly governed by the opinion of an inferior. No other servant possesses such a power; no domestic more abuses his position; the carriage and the harness maker, the corn merchant, and the veterinary surgeon all pay this person five per cent. upon the employer's bills; nothing comes on to the premises but the man claims a profit from it; nothing leaves the stable but is regarded as his perquisite. He thus, while occupying a situation of trust, has an absolute interest in the extravagance of the expenditure. Wear and tear of the articles over which he watches brings to him actual emolument; his interest and his duty are at war, and when a weak person has to decide the battle, it is easy to understand on which part the victory will be declared. CHRONIC DYSENTERY. This affliction is not so common among horses as it is with cattle; neither is it so frequent at the present day as it appears to have formerly been. Once it was termed "molten grease," from an unfounded notion that liquid fat was discharged with the feces. Now it is known that what our ancestors took for grease is no more than the mucus, which is expelled during every form of severe intestinal irritation.