THE MODERN HORSE DOCTOR. 209 



treatment. The practice of indiscriminate drenching, under the 

 circumstances, with salts and aloes, may sometimes prove just as 

 destructive as the injudicious use of the lancet; for purgatives of 

 this character act on the alimentary surfaces as mechanical irri- 

 tants, and then and there set up a pathological action, to counter- 

 act which nature recalls her forces from the external surface, and 

 employs them in the vicinity of parts where they were not wanted, 

 until man's unwise interference conflicted with the well-planned 

 arrangement ; in short, made nature turn a somerset. When the 

 increased action and heat are manifested on the surface, does it 

 not prove that the different organs are acting harmoniously in 

 self-defence ? Is not this same action manifested through the 

 same channels in a state of health ? And if morbific materials 

 are present in the system, and are the cause of fever, will the 

 mode of evacuation be different from that of health? Certainly 

 not. Hence the marked tendency of fever to evacuation by the 

 skin in profuse perspiration, from the nostrils in the form of 

 catarrh, by the bowels as in diarrhoea, and lastly, by abscess. 

 Therefore the great secret of curing diseases consists in accurately 

 observing by what critical evacuations nature casts off whatever 

 may be the cause of her infirmities, and in following and assisting 

 her agreeably to her indications, for she acts with great regularity. 

 When an animal has taken cold, and there is power in the sys- 

 tem to keep up a continual warfare against encroachments, the 

 disturbance of vital action being unbroken, the fever is called 

 pure or persistent. Emanations from animal or vegetable sub- 

 stances in a state of decomposition or putrefaction, or the noxious 

 miasmata from marshy lands, if concentrated, and not sufficiently 

 diluted with atmospheric air, enter into the system, and produce 

 a specific effect. In order to dethrone the intruder, who keeps 

 up a system of aggression from one tissue to another, the vital 

 power arrays her artillery, in good earnest, to resist the invading 

 foe ; and if furnished with the munitions of war in the form of 

 sanative agents, she generally conquers the enemy, and dictates 

 her own terms. While the forces are equally balanced, which 

 may be known by a high grade of vital action, it is also called 

 unbroken or pure fever. The powers of the system may become 

 exhausted by efforts at relief, and the fever will be periodically 

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