48 DISEASE. 



remedy, so much as the circumstances of its exhibition, on 

 which success depends. 



I dare say it has occurred to others as it has occasionally 

 to me, in particular cases, from a certain spirit of over- 

 zeal, or from pushing theory, and the practice consequent 

 on it, beyond their legitimate limits, we find out, sooner or 

 later, that we have been doing harm instead of conferring 

 benefit — making the case worse instead of better — con- 

 verting that which was originally simple into a very com- 

 plex affair, or even one of danger. This observation is 

 especially applicable to pretenders in medicine — such as 

 grooms and farriers, who are ever meddling with and thwart- 

 ing nature's best operations, under a notion that their drinks 

 and ointments — not nature's hand — works the cure. The 

 evil is not, however, I am sorry to assert, confined to such 

 persons as these ; it is too often applicable to the young, 

 inexperienced surgeon ; and on some occasions to the oldest 

 and most practised among us. 



The Medicinal Agents employed for the alleviation of 

 disease, are derived from each kingdom of nature , — the 

 mineral^ the vegetablCj and even the animal. Some of them 

 are exhibited, in prescribed quantities, internally j others 

 are used as external applications. Some are given as they 

 are found in nature ; but the greater number undergo some 

 modification in the hands of the chemist. In the use of 

 medicine, though theory may often enlighten us in our 

 calculations, experience is to be our grand rule of procedure : 

 it was experience that taught the learned Boerhaave, " that 

 the great art of medicine consists in the application of the 

 proper medicine, in the proper dose, and at the proper 

 time/' 



Form of Medicine. — We commonly exhibit medicine 

 either in a solid or a liquid form. As a solid, we give it 

 either in the form of ball or powder ; as a liquid, either as 

 a drench or in the animaFs drink. The ordinary form in 

 which we make up medicine^ and beyond all comparison, 

 the best, is the bolus or ball. And this should be of a lony 

 cylindrical shape — not of that short oblong form to which 



