276 THE CONDITION OF HUNTERS 



BLEEDING 



• Error has had full scope here ; but when we consider 

 that, although the circulation of the blood is one of 

 the most important discoveries in the whole history 

 of physic, it has been involved in the greatest diffi- 

 culties, our surprise will cease, more especially when 

 we recollect in what ignorant hands the lancet and 

 phleme are to be found, and often in full practice. 

 However, as it is on the increased or diminished 

 velocity of this fluid that health or disease depends, 

 it is quite evident that a knowledge of those diseases 

 which are influenced or produced by an increased 

 action of the heart and arteries, and those which are 

 the result of a diminution in the vital powers, must 

 be indispensably necessary to guide the judgment 

 in the important operation of blood-letting. 



The following passage is well worthy of being im- 

 pressed on the minds of all who are in possession of 

 horses. The erroneous opinion that bleeding can be 

 productive of no ill consequences can only arise from 

 a total ignorance of the foregoing observations. The 

 practice of abstracting blood under every circum- 

 stance (which is too common) must be attended with 

 the greatest hazard and danger ; for in all diseases 

 attended with a languid circulation, or where there 

 is a thinness or putrescency of the fluids, blood-letting 

 must be highly injurious, by inducing a greater degree 

 of debihty, and favouring the disposition to gangrene 

 or mortification. Here then is the necessity of con- 

 sulting the pulse of a horse before his veins are opened. 



