Diseases of Domestic Animals. xxxiii 



of any humane mind, to have a favourite horse, which may 

 have greatly coatrihuted to his eomfort, health or pleasure, 

 committed to the care of the most ignorant smith or farrier, 

 whose stock of knowledge may consist in knowing how to 

 ruin the poor animaP s foot, hy had shoeing, or in giving him 

 when sick, the same drench from a horn, whether the dis- 

 ease he pleurisy or colic ? This regret will necessarily con- 

 tinue so long as veterinary medicine is not studied scientifi- 

 cally, or until medical gentlemen cease to think it heneath 

 their notice ; and 1 may add, until the owners of fme horses 

 will hy pecuniary rewards, encourage men of respectahiiity 

 and knowledge to engage in its practice. Further, it is a 

 truth, that nature, amidst tlie infinite variety in structure, 

 seems to have fashioned all the living creatures on our earth 

 after one grand model of organization : this is more especi- 

 ally the case with those composing the extensive class mam- 

 malia, of which man is the head. 



The hones, the muscles, the vessels, the nerves, the or- 

 gans that prepare and secrete the various fluids of the body, 

 and those of the different senses, seem to he substantially the 

 same ; except as regards some difference in iorm, size and 

 position, arising from the peculiar wants of each animal. 



The diseases of mankind and of some animals, particular- 

 ly the horse, are moreover very similar. Independently of 

 the various accidents requiring the aid of surgery, such as 

 ^younds and fractures of bones ; the horse is also subject to 

 fever, pleurisy, dropsy in the brain, severe catarrh, violent 

 colics, dysury or difficulty in staling, d-abetcs or a preterna- 

 tural flow of urine, various kinds of w.>rlns, epilepsy, asthma, 

 locked jaw, and otiier complaints: with the locked jaw, ma- 

 ny horses are carried off in this city every year. 



The Goitre or swelied neck, which is so prevalent a com- 

 plaint among the inhabitants of Switzerland, of Thibet, and 

 other countries of the old world, and also in the new fron- 

 tier settlements of the United States, attacks sheep and calves 



