All this, however, without a good stable, and good stable management, is of no avail.
Speaking next of feeding, Nimrod says:—Formerly wheat was given to race horses, as more nourishing than oats; but now the latter form the chief food for all descriptions of horses. Beans, however, have for some time been allowed to hunters, and when given with discretion are most beneficial. Two single handfuls in each feed of corn is the allowance for a hunter who is fed (as he ought to be) five times a day.
About eight pounds a-day of hay, or one truss a-week, is considered sufficient for a hunter that will eat five feeds of corn per day. A larger quantity is found to increase the size, consequently the weight of the carcase, to injure the wind, and destroy the digestive powers. If one handful of good hay be found in his rack, he should have no more till next stable time, when his appetite will be sharp. If given to eat his straw, the setting muzzle, in this case, must be made use of.
Hunters are not always to be fed alike: allowance should be made for the distance to covert; for when a horse has to go twelve or fourteen miles in a morning to meet hounds, he may be allowed a little more hay overnight, than if he had but four or five, as he will empty his stomach on the road, and there is reason to expect a long day. As to whether a hunter should have any water on the morning of hunting, that is a point not so much considered as it ought to be, for we should be guided by his constitution. If he is apt to scour, and throw off his meat on the road, I should recommend his having none; but if, on the other hand, he holds his meat well in him, has some distance to go, and is not called on till ten or eleven o’clock in the day, he should have six or eight swallows, or godowns, as the grooms call them, between five and six in the morning. This quantity of water, or more, is always given to the race horse on the day he runs his race, as it makes him enjoy his food, and digest it afterwards, and it is all absorbed by the time he is called upon to run. Nothing is so apt to make horses scour as change of food and water; for which reason it is advisable that a hunter should go from his own stable to meet hounds, if the distance does not exceed fifteen or sixteen miles, rather than sleep out, and be subject to the effects alluded to. If, however, he does sleep out, and is affected by the change, he should be watered before he leaves home, and have very little where he sleeps, which will in some measure counteract the evil.
Speaking of stable management, Nimrod says:—As no man can make good work without good tools, so no servant can do his duty by a stud of hunters without proper materials to go to work with. He must have a good stable, some loose boxes, and a good saddle-room with fire-place: he must have lots of horse-clothes of all descriptions, bandages, hot water, gruel, lancets, tweezers, and a few drugs—the very best old hay and corn, good exercising ground, and, above all, plenty of strength in his stable; for there are two ways of dressing a horse—one to warm him, and the other to starve him. Dressing a horse vigorously removes obstructions in the smaller vessels, promotes the circulation of the blood, and in bad weather is a substitute for exercise.
With regard to a horse coming round after a hard day, even supposing him to be in the hands of the best of grooms, that must, in some measure, depend on the stuff he is made of; but, generally speaking, he should come out about the sixth day after the severest run. If his legs have received no injury, he should come out three times in a fortnight, at least during the open weather; and he will be the better for being out twice a week if there have been no tiring days. Some horses require much more work than others; but none of them can go the pace, and continue it over a country, unless they are in strong work.
General rules cannot be individually applied; but there is one respecting a hunter which I have held inviolable; and that is, that, under all circumstances, whether the intervals between his hunting have been long or short, he should have a sweat, and go for a mile nearly at the top of his speed on the day before hunting. I have generally adopted the following plan:—
Let some heavy clothes be put on him, and, with a light weight on his back, let him go at a gentle rate six or eight times around a large field that rides a little deep, till he sweats kindly. Let him be followed to the place by a man with some dry clothes and a scraper, and, taking him into some building, or under a warm hedge, let him be well scraped, and have on his dry clothes. Then, if short of work, let him have a good gallop for a mile, and walk home. This treatment, with proper care, is unattended with any danger of catching cold, and, if followed by a proper allowance of hay and water, will give him a wonderful advantage over those horses which have not been doing what he has done, provided he drop into a quick thing with the hounds the next day. I have seen hunters led to be sweated by a boy riding a hack; but however great an advocate I may be for preserving horses’ legs by keeping weight off them as much as possible, yet a horse cannot, in my opinion, be worthy the name of a hunter if he cannot carry a boy in his exercise.
Having laid some stress upon the words, proper allowance of hay and water on the day before hunting, I will proceed to state what I consider that allowance to be. In the first place, if a horse will eat his corn in the morning without water, he should have none till he comes in from exercise, and is done up, which should be by ten o’clock at farthest. He should then have half a pail of water, and a proportion of his hay, which should not exceed, for a moderately-sized horse, ten pounds a day. He should then be shut up till four, when, before he is dressed over, he should have another half pail of water, and no more until he returns from hunting the next day, unless it be a few swallows on the morning he hunts, when his groom first comes to him. If this quantity of hay is not sufficient to satisfy his appetite, and there is an appearance in the morning of straw in the manger, as if he had been eating it, the setting-muzzle should be put on him at ten o’clock, and should remain on him for the night, but his groom should be with him by five in the morning, to relieve him. He should then have his two feeds, at an interval of an hour, and proceed to the covert at a gentle pace. If, when there, provided he have been treated in the way I have prescribed, he cannot carry his rider as he ought to do, we must conclude nature forbids it, as he will have had every assistance from art.
When I first began to keep hunters, we knew nothing of those great restoratives in the stable—flannel bandages, hot water for the legs, and gruel. Except in case of illness they were never thought of. An old writer on farriery, the Sieur la Fosse, speaks of “the great advantage of keeping horses’ legs warm, as preventing glanders and other accidents;” but it is only within these few years that bandages have been applied as part of the clothing of a hunter; the benefit of which is, in my opinion, incalculable. By their use circulation is kept up in those parts where it is apt to be most languid; and the practice of washing legs in very warm water, and swathing them in large folds of flannel, takes off soreness and inflammation from blows and other injuries, which all hunters are liable to in a run over a strong country. Another advantage attending them is, that they admit of a horse being shut up in half the time it formerly required to clean him, which enables him to lie down, or roll, which he will always do if in a loose house, before he gets stiff from his work.
There is a cleanliness in not letting a hunter be taken into his stable until the rough dirt which hangs about him is removed; for which purpose he should be taken under a shed or into another stable; and the quickest method of removing it is by the means of a birch-broom. Three minutes will accomplish this. He should then be taken into his own stable, have two or three quarts of tepid gruel, and his feet and legs above his knees and houghs should be well washed in water nearly hot. When sponged well with strained sponges, one set of bandages should be swathed around them. His head and body should be well dried, which, if he is full of hard meat, will not occupy more than an hour, when he should be shut up in a loose house, well littered down, and a small feed of corn allowed him. In about two hours his groom should come to him again; his bandages should be taken off, his legs well wisped and hand-rubbed, his head and body lightly brushed over, and a dry set of bandages put on. A lukewarm mash, with a feed of oats in it, and three parts of a pail of tepid water, with a very small quantity of hay, will make him comfortable for the night; and on the following morning he should go to exercise as soon as it is light, and be walked for an hour with an extra cloth and a hood. He should have tepid water all that day, and a liberal allowance of it, with his usual oats if he will eat them, but no beans. If his appetite fails him, and does not return before shutting-up time that evening, he should have half a cordial and half a diuretic-ball mixed together; which, with a liberal allowance of tepid water, and an hour and a half walking exercise on the third day, will so far recover him as to enable him to return to his former high feed on the fourth; on the fifth or sixth have a sweat; and on the seventh be fit for business again (as far, at least, as his constitution is concerned) after the hardest day, and will carry his rider with more ease to himself than if he had not gone through it.—Nimrod.
Huntinghorn,s.A bugle, a horn used to cheer the hounds.
Huntress,s.A woman that follows the chase; a mare used in hunting.
Huntsman,s.One who delights in the chase; the servant whose office it is to manage the chase.
It is the opinion of a great sportsman, that it is as difficult to find a perfect huntsman as a good prime minister. Without taking upon me to determine what requisites may be necessary to form a good prime minister, I will describe some of those which are essentially necessary towards making a perfect huntsman; qualities which, I will venture to say, would not disgrace more brilliant situations:—such as a clear head, nice observation, quick apprehension, undaunted courage, strength of constitution, activity of body, a good ear, and a good voice.—Beckford.
Huntsmanship,s.The qualifications of a hunter.
Hurl,v.To throw with violence; to play at a kind of game.
Hurl,s.Tumult, riot; a kind of game; the bat used in hurling.
Hurler,s.One that plays at hurling.
Hurling is the national game of Ireland, and much practised in the southern and western counties. It differs from cricket in its being a mere contest between the opposing parties, as to which shall force the ball between barriers placed at some distance from each other. The ball is thrice the size of a cricket-ball, the hurl differently shaped, and the game of a wilder and less methodical character, as it affords a liberty for each individual to exert himself as he pleases. Hence the “melée” of a hurling-match has rather the appearance of hostile encounter than rustic sport, and is therefore better adapted to the rude and martial people who practise it, than the more scientific but less exciting game of cricket.
Husk,s.The outmost integument of some sorts of fruit.
Hybrid,s.Any animal whose sire is of one kind and dam of another.
Hybridous,a.Begotten between animals of different species; produced from plants of different kinds.
Hydrophobia,s.Dread of water; a malady destructive to the human and canine races.
Hydrophobia in medicine is a disease generally communicated to man by the bite of a rabid dog, and is so called because one of its principal symptoms is the inability of the patient to swallow water or any other liquid. It is called by some writers canine madness, and seldom makes its appearance till a considerable time after the bite of the rabid animal. In some few instances it has commenced in seven or eight days from the accident, but generally the patient continues in health for twenty, thirty, or forty days, or even much longer. The bite will in general be healed long before that time, frequently with the greatest ease, though sometimes it resists all kinds of healing applications, and forms a running ulcer, which discharges a quantity of matter for many days. The approach of the disease is known by the cicatrix of the wound becoming high, hard, and elevated, and by a peculiar sense of prickling at the part; pains shoot from it towards the throat; sometimes it is surrounded with livid or red streaks, and seems to be in a state of inflammation; though often there is nothing remarkable to be observed. The patient becomes melancholy, loves solitude, and feels sickness at the stomach. Sometimes the peculiar symptoms, the dread of water, comes on all at once; sometimes the disease begins like a common sore throat, and the soreness daily increasing, the hydrophobic symptoms appear like a convulsive spasm of the muscles of the fauces. In others the mind is first affected, and a real dread of water arises before the patient tries whether he can swallow it. But in whatever manner this symptom comes on, the most painful sensations accompany every attempt to swallow liquids. Nay, the bare sight of water, or any thing clear, will give the utmost uneasiness, or even throw the patient into convulsions. The patient, however, is not as yet deprived of reason; some have, merely by the dint of resolution, conquered the dread of water, though they never could overcome the convulsive motions which the contact of liquids occasioned: and yet this has been of no avail; for the convulsions and other symptoms increasing have always overpowered the individual at last, and a great flow of viscid saliva into the mouth now takes place, and it has the same effect upon the fauces that other liquids have. This therefore is blown off with violence, which in a patient of Doctor Fothergill’s occasioned a noise like the barking of a dog. Patients then have an insatiable thirst, but are unable to get down any drink without the utmost difficulty, though sometimes they can swallow bread soaked in liquids, slices of oranges, or other fruits. There is a pain under the scrobiculus cordis, as in the tetanus. But the symptoms are so various, that they cannot be enumerated, for we seldom read two cases of hydrophobia which do not differ very remarkably. Sometimes every member is convulsed by fits, but most violently from the navel up to the breast and œsophagus. The fit comes on perhaps every quarter of an hour; the fauces are not red, nor the tongue dry; the pulse is not at all feverish; and, when the fit is over, nearly like a sound pulse. The face grows pale, then brown, and during the fits almost black, the lips livid; the head is drowsy, and the ears tingling; the urine limpid. At last the patient is weary, the fits are less violent, the pulse becomes weak, intermittent, and not very quick; and at last the whole body becomes cold. If the patient can get sleep, so he will expire. The blood drawn before death appears good in every respect. The hydrophobia seems to be a symptom peculiar to the human race; for the mad animals which communicate the infection do not seem to have any dread of water. If the disease once exhibits its symptoms in a human patient, the chances for recovery are small indeed; there having never been one well authenticated case of the recovery of a really hydrophobous person. Prevention is the only chance, and removal of the contagious matter the only fair hope of preserving life. Of all the means of removal, the cutting out the part to which the tooth had been applied is unquestionably the most effectual. This therefore should not be delayed; one quarter of an hour’s hesitation will sometimes prove fatal. But besides cutting away the part, careful washing may be used. Cold water should be poured upon the wound from a considerable height, that the matter may be washed away with some force. Even after removal by the knife, careful washing is still proper. And after both these, to prevent, as far as can be, the possibility of any contagious matter lurking about the wounded part, it should not be allowed to heal, but a discharge of matter should be supported for several weeks by ointment with cantharides, or similar applications; by these means there is the best chance of removing the matter at a sufficiently early period. Prevention may also be obtained by the destruction of the contagious matter at the part; and where there is the least reason to think that a complete removal has not been obtained, these should always be had recourse to. With this intention the actual cautery, and burning with gunpowder, have been employed; and fire is doubtless one of the most powerful agents that can be used for this purpose. Recourse has also been had to washing, both with acids and alkalies. Of the former vinegar has been chiefly used, but more may be expected from the latter, particularly from the caustic alkali, so far diluted that it can be applied with safety; for from its influence as a solvent of animal mucus, it gives a better chance of a complete removal of the poison.
The injured part must be destroyed, or be cut out. Destroying it is the most safe and certain, and the best applications for that purpose are the lapis infernalis and the butter of antimony. These are preferable to a hot iron, which the ancients used, because a hot iron forms a crust that acts as a defence to the under parts instead of destroying them. The lapis infernalis is much better than any other caustic, as it melts and penetrates during its application. The bitten part must be destroyed to the bottom, and where there is any doubt that the bottom of the wound is not sufficiently reached, butter of antimony should be introduced occasionally as deep as possible, and incisions should be made, if necessary, to lay open every part to the influence of the caustic. In desperate cases incisions should be made round the wound to prevent the virus from spreading. The wound is to be dressed for some time with poultices, to assuage the inflammation caused by the caustics, and afterwards with acrid dressings and hot digestives, to create a discharge and drain the injured parts.
It is my practice, and I recommend it to others when called to patients bitten by a mad dog, to try them immediately, and from time to time, with water, slopping it first into a pewter pot, and from thence back to the basin a few times, in order to detect as early as possible the hydrophobia, or first decided symptom produced by the poison of a mad dog.
An Italian surgeon of the hospital at Moscow, being in the Ukraine in 1813, was requested to give assistance to fifteen persons, who had received the bite of a mad dog. A deputation of elders waited upon him, and entreated him to administer help to the unfortunate persons through a peasant, who, during several years, had acquired great reputation for curing hydrophobia. M. Marochetti consented upon certain conditions. The country doctor then administered to fourteen of the persons confided to him in a peculiar way. The fifteenth, a young girl of fifteen, was treated in the ordinary manner, for the purpose of proving the effect of both modes of treatment. To each of the fourteen he gave daily one pound and a half of the decoction of the buds of yellow broom flowers, and he examined twice a day under the tongue the place where, according to his statement, little swellings were formed containing the virus of madness. These swellings rose on the third or ninth day, and were seen by M. Marochetti. Very soon after they appeared, they were touched with a red hot needle, after which the patient gargled the part with the decoction of broom. The result of this treatment was that the fourteen patients were cured in six weeks, whilst the young girl, treated differently, died on the seventh day in the convulsions of madness. Three years after M. Marochetti paid a visit to the fourteen persons, and they were all doing well. The same physician being at Padolia, in 1818, had a new opportunity of confirming this interesting discovery. The happy result of this mode of treatment was the same with twenty-six persons, who had all been bit by a mad dog.—Gazette de Santé—Gilman—Darwin—Marochetti.