38 CURATIVE SYSTEMS 



are well borne in parturient toxaemia of cattle, and in other 

 cases in which there is depression of nervous force. 



The surroundings of the patient materially alter the 

 action of remedies. Diseases, whether in horses, cattle, or 

 dogs, occurring in large towns, and in filthy, overcrowded, 

 and badly- ventilated premises, are notoriously liable to 

 assume chronic and untoward forms, and are less responsive 

 to curative measures. Medicines can only act effectually 

 when seconded by proper sanitary arrangements. Over- 

 heated, imperfectly ventilated stables lower the vitality 

 of their inmates, by retarding excretion, and favouring 

 absorption of noxious exhalations. Such facts demand 

 consideration alike in the treatment and prevention of 

 disease. Frequently a horse with influenza, bronchitis, or 

 pneumonia, is thrown back for days by being stripped and 

 taken out of his box in cold weather. One meal of coarse, 

 indigestible food, even of moderate amount, sometimes 

 retards recovery from gastric derangements, and, indeed, 

 from most debilitating diseases. Constipation or torpidity 

 of the bowels interferes .with the absorption, and hence with 

 the satisfactory operation of all medicines. Exposure to 

 cold seriously injures patients which have received full 

 aperient doses of salts or of turpentine, or which have been 

 freely dressed with mercurial ointment. Foul air and 

 disordered digestion retard the healing even of simple 

 wounds. On the other hand, gentle exercise encourages 

 the action of most eliminatives ; quiet favours the effects 

 of soothing remedies ; generous diet considerably aids in 

 the benefits of restoratives, tonics, and stimulants. Actively 

 depleting treatment, as by purgatives, is more easily borne 

 in winter than in summer, in the country than in the town, 

 in well-bred animals in good condition than in coarser 

 subjects which have been indifferently nourished. 



CURATIVE SYSTEMS : ALLOPATHY, HOMOEOPATHY 



The difficult question is frequently asked How do 

 medicines cure disease? Endeavour is made, guided by 

 biological laws, to adjust or restore to harmony any irregu- 

 larity or deviation from health which may have affected 



