DISEASES OF THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS ST? STEM. 



fcquiiea tbe same treatment. In former years the author met with 

 but little success in the treatment of this malady, yet recently, oy 

 using more mild and sanative agents, he has been very fortunate. 

 Bleeding, purging, and blistering has had its day, but that day 

 has now past. We have learned that to do violence lo the animal 

 8}'stem is not to do good ; and our aim now is to " pair off" with 

 Nature, endeavor to sustain the vital powers, or, rather, by sanative 

 medication and nutritious fluids, keep the animal alive, while the 

 disease runs its course. Physicians have no power to arrest the 

 disease, and those who think so only deceive themselves and their 

 employers ; and those who attempt the feat of cutting the disease 

 short by heroic medicines, are arrayed in hostility to Nature, and 

 an unnecessary death is often the consequence. Any of our readers 

 who happen to have great faith in drugs will probably feel little 

 comfort in the perusal of the following quotation, uttered by one 

 of the most distinguished physicians of France. It was intended 

 for the benefit of mankind, but it also applies to veterinar}' medi- 

 cine, simply from the fact that the diseases of animals are to be 

 treated on the same general principles which apply to man : 



" The sick-room no longer resembles the sample department of 

 of a drug warehouse. Our physicians have consciences and com- 

 mon sense. They recognize Nature as the great antagonist of dis- 

 e;ise, and endeavor to assist her in her struggle to expel it, instead 

 of negatively helping disease by prostrating the physical strength 

 of its victims with drasti-c cathartics, cantharides, and the lancet 

 In ailments for which gallons of medicine were given half a cen- 

 t iry ago, as many ounces are not administered at the present day, 

 and bleeding and blistering have almost fallen into disuse. Not 

 long before his death, the great French surgeon, physician, and 

 medical chemist, Majendie, told his pupils, in the college of Franco, 

 that the old hospital practice was mere humbug; that he him?flf 

 had prescribed the drugs of the dispensary at the Hoiel Dim, in 

 Paris, without having the least idea why or wherefore, and that on 

 administering bread pills and colored water to one division of his 

 patients, and the preparations of the pharmacopoeia to another, he 

 found that the mortality was least among those who took no medi- 

 cine! 'You tell me,' said this extraordinaiy man, in one of the 

 lectures of his final course, ' tliat doctors cure people. I grant you 

 peo])le are cured. But how? Gentlemen, Nature does a good 

 deal ; imagination does a good deal. Doctors do very little, wher 



