CAUTIONS IN PRESCRIBINO. 



163 



( 1 20. ) Cautions in prescribing. Great reliance is in 

 general placed upon prescriptions, which profess to suit 

 diseases in every stage and circumstance. — Than this, 

 however, scarcely any thing can be more absurd. It 

 is an opinion engendered not so much by ignorance as 

 by laziness, a determination not to be put about by 

 thinking of a remedy for the evils which surround us, 

 but, while we contrive to soothe ourselves by doing 

 something, to leave every thing to the hit-or-raiss prac- 

 tice of charlatans.' There are many, who on being 

 informed of the presence of disease in a neighbour's 

 flock, confidently advise the employment of a favourite 

 nostrum, on the empirical supposition that because it 

 cured, or was thought to cure, one flock, it will cure 

 another. Nothing is taken into account saving that, in 

 both cases, the affected animals are sheep ; and it is at 

 once concluded, that what benefited one will benefit 

 another. The many niceties in prescribing are never 

 ^ thought of: oh no, that would be of no use ! of course it 

 ^can be of no importance to give a moment's attention 

 to age and sex, pasture and situation, or to leanness 

 or fatness, or to the presence of pregnancy ! These are 

 of trifling moment, and only to be despised by a person 

 armed with a recipe, which some one has shown to be 

 capable of walking like a constable through the body, 

 and bearing off the intruder ! But enough of this ; 

 sufficient has, I think, been said to prove the utter folly 

 of confiding in things of the above nature or intention, 

 and to show that such confidence can lead to nothing 



* Whenever we hear a person recommending a medicine of universal 

 Tirtues, we may safely set him down either for a fool or an impostor, 

 riiings which are good for every thing arc good for nothing. 



