52 DISEASE. 



are administered either with a horn or a bottle, and the 

 assistance of the elevating pole. We are very much in want 

 of some improvement here. 



Vis Medicatrix Nature is the phrase used by medical 

 men to express that power, inherent in every body endowed 

 with life, of repairing injuries and rectifying derangements 

 to its integrity. To the existence of this curative pro- 

 perty we owe the healing of wounds, the union of fractured 

 bones and that agency which is always working (not only 

 during every injury, but in every disorder of the body) to- 

 wards the restitution of health. Though the natural tendency 

 of this power be salutary, however, we should know it may 

 become over-excited or depressed, or-have its action perverted 

 so as to degenerate into an evil influence. These deviations 

 from the healthy or natural action are part of the phenomena 

 of disease. Our duty, in reference to the vis medicatrix, is 

 to direct it, to control it, or to take care it be not thwarted, 

 according as the case shall require : it may demand curbing, 

 or it may need to be excited ; it may even call for temporary 

 repression; destroyed it cannot be but with life itself. 

 There are many cases which, from the salutary operations of 

 the VIS medicatrix, call for nothing by way of treatment 

 beyond abstinence. Indeed, in every case, we must not 

 lose sight of the medical axiom — that Nature can do every- 

 thing without remedies ; but that remedies can do nothing 

 without Nature. 



The Death of our Patient gives us an opportunity of 

 investigating disease ; it also affords us more or less insight 

 into the nature of disease. The examination of morbid 

 parts often supplies us with informatioii of a highly valuable 

 description : and, in the opportunities of obtaining this in- 

 struction veterinarians possess advantage over surgeons. 

 It occasionally happens that horses die whose bodies disclose 

 no perceptible marks or traces of disease; but it oftener 

 happens that more disease is found on the post-mortem 

 examination than was anticipated during life : a circumstance 

 which forms an additional reason for habitual investi- 



