47 



TREATMENT OF DISEASE. 



The Treatment of Disease consists in the employment 

 of such means as tend to its cure ; and in the cure more is 

 expected from us than from human practitioners. If a 

 surgeon can save the life of his patient with the loss of a 

 limb, or his sight, he not only satisfies his employers, but 

 often gains great credit for the cure he has accomplished. 

 But what sort of a cure would a man be persuaded we had 

 made of his horse, when we returned the animal to him 

 blind, or with the loss of a leg ? It behoves a veterinary 

 surgeon to restore the diseased part to its healthy functions, 

 or he runs a risk of not giving satisfaction, and even of 

 encountering the unmerited reproaches of his employer. 



The principles on which medicine is conducted are few 

 and undeviating : they adjust themselves to the views we 

 take of the disease ; therefore it follows, though the animals 

 be different, yet, if we admit the sameness of their disease, 

 we must be- governed by the same treatment. In most 

 disorders the living actions are excited — inflammation, in 

 some form or other, is present ; to counteract and reduce 

 Avhich, our treatment becomes depletive. Some morbid 

 states there are in which the functions are depressed : here 

 we must act on an opposite principle — stimulate. A 

 third principle on which we practise medicine is one we are 

 compelled to admit, though it is one concerning which we 

 cannot offer much in explanation : we may denominate it 

 the principle of experience ; though it more commonly passes 

 as quachery^ from the abuse made of it by pretenders as an 

 impenetrable shield to their ignorance. 



Medical Practice, in fact, is a combination of rational 

 and empirical means : the one consisting in the employment 

 of remedies whose operation on the animal economy is 

 known ; the other, in the application of agents without any 

 reference to the circumstances under which their agency 

 may operate. Every practitioner knows that it is not the 



