ANIMALS' SYSTEMS DIFFER. LESSER PARTS DESCRIBED. 6ft 



our ignorance, put the whole system out of repair, when we endeavour to 

 control nature, instead of humbly following her track, and working after her 

 fashion ; and every mechanic knows, that a system, or a machine, being once 

 put out of order in its minutest part, incurs the danger of complete disorga- 

 nization in those that are more material to the performance of its functions as 

 a whole : an observation that applies as well to a watch or steam-engine, as 

 to a worm, to n»an, or the horse ; but which, of course, I intend should be ap- 

 plied to the last mentioned animal particularly. 



Our Creator, however, as if prescient of the barbarities his image would 

 fall into, in the exercise and abuse of the power he gave us over the living 

 things of the earth, hath, in his goodness, conferred on brutes the means of 

 supplying from one part of the system the losses which accident may occa 

 sion in another part : a subject well worthy our patient scrutiny, as furnish 

 ing the means of effecting cures in desperate cases, and not to be disregarded 

 in first attacks of malignant diseases. 



But " the animal system," as a term, or in fact, may be taken to imply as 

 well that of all animals as particular kind of animals — descending sometimes 

 (not improperly) to individuals of those kinds. Some persons, however, de- 

 scend still lower, and the term " system" has been sadly misapplied, and ban- 

 died about from one thing to another, until it is brought to describe particular 

 parts or portions only of the individual's system. The dog kind, the horse 

 kind, and mankind, are good and proper distinctions, for the system of animal 

 life differ in all three: they are not in every case moved in a similar manner 

 by the same class of medicines; whereby we first perceive that their systems 

 differ, and we examine the dead subject of either kind (as in the preceding 

 chapter), to find out how this takes place, and in what degree, and we regu- 

 late our practice conformably to the discoveries so made. The several indi- 

 viduals, too, of the same kind, have particularities in their respective systems, 

 arising from habit, from country or climate, or from crosses* that demand our 

 serious analytical reasoning, in the application of similar remedies, and adapt- 

 ing their proportions to the removal of similar symptoms. So, a sensible 

 difference is known to exist between the constitution of a cart-horse and a 

 blood-horse, between a galloway and a hunter; each requiring accurate dis- 

 crimination in ascertaining the state of disease,t and this consideration ought 

 to inspire us with carefulness in applying the ren^edies, since that which re- 

 stores the one might be injurious to the other. Among those four breed.s, we 

 frequently find individuals variously affected from the same causes according 

 to their built, shape, or make (see pages 2, G, and 18), according to the con- 

 stitution and co-adaptation of the dam and sire ; as age may come on, acci- 

 dents have taken place, or chiefly as the individual may have been mistreated 

 Wy his unworthy master, the sordid fiirrier, or unfeehng ostler, ''""o all which 

 important distinctions in the state of his patient's particularities, 1 beg to call 

 the studious reader's most serious attention, while examining his case, in ordei 

 to apply the rr medy most appropriate to the degree of attack. 



In the two preceding chapters of this treatise, more of the animal mignc 

 undoubtedly have been described, or the same subjects considerably enlarged 

 upon, and move parade of learning might have been displayed, but the readci 

 would not have benefited one jot by that course of proceeding : he migh.t, 

 probably, have bewildered himself (as many do) in the mazes which would 

 then surround him ; whilst the description of those parts of the animal, which 



* The system of the same individual, also, may undergo changes by time; so that a medi- 

 cine may operate ditTerently now from what it formerly did. 



t The surest barometer of healtli, the pulse, would indicate an approach towards fever ir 

 one individual, which might be the certain standard of neaith in another. s>ec The Pulse,' 

 MpaseGO. 



