262 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



class of beings guided only by instinctive impulses. It is said 

 of the great emperor, that his heart was never more touched, if 

 heart indeed he had, than on a certain occasion, when, three 

 days after a sanguinary battle, when human victims were immo 

 lated to his dreadful ambition by thousands, riding over a field 

 thickly strewed with the dying and the dead, he found a faithful 

 dog lying by the side and licking the bleeding wounds of his 

 dying master. The noble dog of St. Bernard, dragging the 

 perishing traveller from the snow-drift to the hospitable convent, 

 for warmth and comfort, and the poor spaniel dying with slow 

 starvation upon the grave of his master, and refusing to be led 

 away or to be comforted, are pictures of heroism and fidelity 

 worthy of a place at the side of that of Regulus, deaf to the 

 entreaties of his family, taking leave of the senate on his return 

 to fulfil his pledge, or that of the Grecian daughter nourishing 

 her father in prison. 



Humanity calls upon us to alleviate suffering, wherever suf 

 fering exists. I wish that veterinary instruction was connected 

 with all our medical schools, and made an indispensable branch 

 of study. We try all kinds of experiments upon these helpless 

 animals for the benefit of science, and science should do some 

 thing to repay the debt, by attempting, in every practicable form, 

 to alleviate the sufferings of the race. In the country, a medical 

 practitioner, who would add veterinary skill and practice to his 

 other services, would confer immense benefits. It is lamentable 

 that, by a false standard of moral duty, such an office should be 

 thought degrading. In many cases, it might subject him to 

 painful and thankless services; but the life of every benevolent 

 physician is full of such services, and he has only to thank God 

 that he has the power of doing so much good, often at so little 

 cost. So far from such a practice being degrading, the physician 

 who would be willing to render such services would be worthy 

 of double honor ; for the more humble, the meaner, the more 

 friendless the sufferer, proportionately is the glory of the kindness 

 enhanced. There is no reason, however, why such services 

 should be gratuitous, and in many situations it would form a 

 profitable branch of practice. 



