EXERCISE. 219 



acknowledge there is no publication upon 

 these subjects extant, to whose dictates I 

 should more cheerfully become a convert, 

 than the productions of the very author 

 whose opinion, in one ijistance, I am com- 

 pelled to oppose. 



It is so perfectly in point to adopt the 

 vulgarism of '' killing two birds with ona 

 stone/' that I cannot resist the temptation, 

 and present opportunity, to introduce a few 

 words upon an inconsistent passage in 

 Bracken, that equally clashes with an opi- 

 nion of mine frequently introduced in ray 

 former volume, where the operation of 

 Bleeding, or the state of the blood, necessa- 

 rily became matter of recommendation. In 

 p. Ill of his Second Volume, he says, *^ the 

 blood becomes viscid, poor, and dispirited." 

 This passage is so strangely sequestered from 

 comprehension, so ridiculously replete with 

 paradoxical obscurity, and so directly con- 

 trary to my own observations, founded in 

 practice, and long since communicated under 

 the sanction of inviolate veracity, that I can- 

 not permit such a profusion of professional 



