170 DADD'S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY 



Persons who have paid any attention to the study of physiology, 

 are aware that these instinctive or invokmtary movements, ])er- 

 form'^d without consciousness, are the birthright of a vast numbei 

 of tl 3 inferior orders of creation; therefore, it is not Hkely thai 

 the hot would, even if he possessed the power, voluntarily vacate 

 a location favorable to its growth and development. 



Veterinary surgeons have long since discarded the absurd notiorr 

 that bots are the cause of luiy uain or suffering to horses. In fad. 

 Borae of the most distinguished of them assert that these little- 

 creatures, with their rough exterior, are rather bencficnal than 

 otherwise, and that, by friction and irritation, they arouse the 

 sluggishness of the stomach, and thus promote digestion. Per- 

 sons unacquainted with these facts are, therefore, apt to attribute 

 effects, during life, to causes which happen after death, and, conse- 

 quently, the poor horse has to be dosed with all sorts of nostrums. 



So popular has been the belief that bots are injurious to horses, 

 and, therefore, must be expelled at all hazards, that almost ail the 

 old works on farriery contained some favorite recipe for their ex- 

 pulsion. Popular opinion, too, has been so much in favor of the 

 theory, that "Sir. Percivall thought it his duty, as a j)ublic 

 teacher, to make use of the following language : 



" You may boldly assert thai bots are in nowise injurious. Still, 

 you can not persuade the woi-ld so, and, therefore, you must be 

 prepared to meet the complaints of those unbelievers, who will, 

 now and then, declare that their horses have bots, which must be 

 got rid of. But I know of no medicine that has the power of 

 destroying ; and even if we possessed such, I am not sure that we 

 could, even when dead, detach them from the cuticular coat of the 

 Btomach, to which they are attached by small horns." 



In allusion to the parasites which infest the human body, Wat- 

 80N remarks: 



" It is a curiuQS fact that numerous parasites do crawl over the 

 Biirface of our Viodies, burrow beneath our skin, nestle in our en- 

 trails and riot and propagate their kind in every corner of our 

 frame, producing ofttimes such molestation and distui'bance as to 

 require the interference of medicine. Nearly a score of animals 

 that have their dwelling-place in the interior of the human body 

 have been alrciidy discovered and described, and scarcely a tissue 

 or an organ but is occasionally profaned by their inroads. Each, 

 *lfio, has its special or its favorite domicile. One species onoose* 



