Ixii Rush, on studying the diseases oj Animals. 



plying their numbers, we multiply life, sensation, and enjoy- 

 ment. We moreover prevent the pains of a gradual death 

 from sickness, and the miseries of a helpless old age. Ta 

 destroy them by the knife, tlierefore, and to use them as a 

 part of our food, is so far from being cruel, that it is an act 

 of kindness and benevo'^nce to them. 



To the proposal for studying the dise?ses of domestic ani- 

 mals, it may be objected that their want of speech will for- 

 ever prevent their imparting to us an rxcount of the seats 

 and symptoms of their diseases. This objection, I am aware, 

 will be urged by those physicians who believe that ever}^ dis- 

 ease has a specific proximate cause, and requires an appro- 

 priate remedy; but students of medicine, -w-^.o believe that 

 all diseases have one proximate cause, vrill find no difficulty 

 in discovering their existence and force in dumb animals. — 

 The full or frequent pulse, the loss of appetite, the deject- 

 ed head, and the languid and watery eye, are certain marks 

 in all brute animals of one of the most frequent diseases with- 

 •which they are affected, that is fever. The Avatery eye, an 

 inability to bark, or barking with a stertorous hcarsness, in- 

 dicate the approach of madness in the dog. The elevation 

 of the hair on the back of a cat, and its not falling upon its 

 feet v.'hen throvm from a moderate hight, are the premoni- 

 tory signs of that disease which has lately been so fatal to 

 that species of animals in Europe and America. The tail 

 of a horse losing its regularity of motion from side to side, 

 indicates that he is indisposed, and the part in which his 

 disease is seated is pointed out, by one of his ears inclining 

 backv^'ards to the side affected. In acute pains, particularly 

 from the colic, he bites his manger. The seat of diseases in 

 the abdomen where the signs are absent, may be known by 

 pressing the hand upon the whole belly of the animal. It will 

 discover marks of pain, when the diseased part is pressed. 

 Diseases of the head, lungs, kidneys, limbs and skin, are as 

 easily known as the same diseases are in the same parts of 

 the human bodv. 



