164 DADD'8 VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY 



BoTS (Stomachic and Hemorrhoidal). 



Some persons contend that bots are always injurious. Thi 

 author dissents from this dictum. It is possible that, as iu the ca« 

 of intestinal worms, which are now recognized as the scavengers 

 of Nature, that the bots are Nature's hirelings, created and com 

 missioned to do her bidding, to maintain the integrity of h^.r 

 physiological laws. The parent of the bot, as Bracy Clark re- 

 marks, ^' selects her subjects," or, in other words, pounces on those 

 who are not in rapport with Nature, and hence have no busines? 

 to enjcy good health, nor even to live. 



This was the case when the people of the great city of London 

 were afflicted with the terrible plague, which ran riot and carried 

 off about one-fourth of the inhabitants. The sanitary emissary of 

 Nature, whose shield was emblazoned with the motto, " Thus far 

 shalt thou go and no further," pounced upon selected subjecta, 

 the intemperate, licentious, and the gluttonous, and those who had 

 violated Nature's laws by wallowin^j; in filth in down-cellar loca- 

 tions, where the breath of life — pure air — scarcely ever entered. 

 These were the selected sufferers. The same is true as regards the 

 mortality attending the yellow fever, which made such sad havoc 

 in the city of New Orleans some years ago. The medical author- 

 ities contend that the disease carried off over one thousand of the 

 inhabitants, without touching a single sober or temperate person ; 

 hence the plague, the yellow fever, and the cholera may be said to 

 be the forces which Nature employs to maintain the integrity of 

 her laws. Intestinal worms, found in the intestinal tube of the 

 emaciated and the glutton, are said to be Nature's scavengers, and 

 the same perhaps is true of bots. They may be the agents of Na- 

 ture, employed to keep the balance of power within her own hand, 

 for the purpose, sometimes, of preventing a too rapid multiplica- 

 tion of the species ; at others, to avenge her for crimes committed 

 gainst the laws of physiology. 



Let us, for example, inquire into the history and habits of some 

 u^ thp inferior orders of creation, and we may be led to infer that 

 the presence of bots in the stomach of a horse is no deviation from 

 the general rule which seems to pervade all creation. Our tenure 

 of li^e depends on the use which we make of it, and the same La 

 true as regards the horse. 



In the study of physiology, we discover that animals and insects 



