122 TREATMENT OF DISEASES 



ary course of milvition; hence, all the organs of sensation must be 

 abundantly supplied with blood. The blood furnished to the nerve 

 substance carries to it oxygen, and this oxygen effects the decompo- 

 sition on which the nerve force depends for its integrity. Every 

 thought, muscular action, pulsation, and act of respiration occasions 

 nerve waste or -decomposition. Respiration rather augments oxy- 

 gen than diminishes, yet a certain amount of nerve waste occurs even 

 in the physio-fngical function of the lungs. 



Nerve waste is peculiarly rapid diu'ing the employment of nerve 

 force, so that a horse of the nervous temperament — when perform- 

 infT feats of speed — will become sooner exhausted than another of 

 the lymphatic temperament, whose nervous system is not so deli- 

 cately organized. The sura and substance of the matter is, that 

 men and horses of the nervous temperament wear out, as the say- 

 ing is, very fast. 



The spinal cord receives impressions from the external regions of 

 the body, and emits motor force. For example, if we rudely handle 

 an anicnal, the act occasions combative muscular movements. 



Some of the movements or evolutions carried on by the spinal 

 cord are involuntary, and therefore may be considered as uncon- 

 scious, simply because they occur when will and sensation are 

 suspended, dm-ing the time when sleep prevails ; therefore it may 

 be inferred that the spinal cord takes charge of various operations 

 of the body, which would be less perfectly performed if left to the 

 ordinary action of voluntary muscular and nervous actions. 



Many of the movements effected under the influence of the brain 

 and spinal marrow, are instinctive, and in no way connected with 

 the will. For example, a floating foreign body in the air approaches 

 the eye of a man or horse, and ere either one knows anything about 

 it, the eyelids are instantaneously closed (involuntarily, of course) ; 

 hence, such muscular movements are in no way connected with the 

 will. 



All animals that possess any trace of a cerebrum, or brain proper, 

 are capable of performing some kind of intellectual operation. 



Mind. The results that are worked out through the activity of 

 the brain are termed the "mind." Horses have a brain, hence must 

 think and reason ; their manifestations of mind not differing from 

 that of man, only in degree. 



ON THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE. 



During the past fifty years much of the live stock of this country 

 has been most outrageously over- doctored and over-dosed, many 

 people supposing that, by converting a sick horse's stomach into a 

 sort of apothecary's shop and grocery store, the sooner would he 

 get well, when the very reverse is the case ; for I am satisfied from 

 long experience, and having been a careful observer of the effects of 

 medicine on the animal economy, that the less drugs a sick horse 

 gets, the more likely is he to get well. 



For example, when a large quantity of medicine is administered 

 to a horse, it very frequently so disturbs the animal economy as to 



