108 ON \\'OUXDS. 



ground the mode of treatment must be plain 

 and simple. It appears to have been a primor- 

 dial provision of nature, to have endowed ani- 

 mals with the faculty of reparation of such parts 

 of their bodies as have been injured and disorga- 

 nized by accidental violence. This faculty is 

 more perfect in brutes than in man, and exists 

 in a different degree of perfection in different 

 classes, in some, even to the power of complete 

 regeneration of an amputated part, as in the li- 

 zard, the crab, and the polypus. In the prac- 

 tice of surgery, the catalogue of salves, oint- 

 ments, Scc. has been, of late years, very judici- 

 ously curtailed. Practitioners have discovered, 

 that the common pretence of assisting nature, 

 has but too often proved the means of counter- 

 acting her endeavours. It is much to be la- 

 mented, that the same improvement has not ex- 

 tended to the veterinary art. In all recent inju- 

 ries, the first process which nature employs is 

 an increased action in the part affected. For> 

 as an injured part is rendered weaker, either by 



a loss 



