442 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



localities of disease, explain certain operations in the animal economy, and 

 render terms intelligible, it would be time thrown away. 



In pathology somewhat, and to a much greater extent in the systems of 

 therapeutics adopted, [ have found it necessary to cut clear from all Eng- 

 lish ovine veterinarians. If this is regarded as presumptuous, I have only 

 to say that the testimony or opinions of that man are worth little who so 

 far pins his faith on another's views, as to disregard the plain evidence of 

 his own senses. The salutary rule of the law is, each witness testifies to 

 what he has seen, and to what, crediting the assertions of his own senses, 

 he knows. It is for the investigating tribunal to decide what weight shall 

 be attached to the testimony. That tribunal, in the present case, is the 

 public. 



But in reality, a discrepancy of views on the above subjects, does not ne- 

 cessarihj imply an eiTor on either side. The pathology of diseases fre- 

 quently does not coincide, as between different climates and countries, and 

 sometimes, singularly enough, between contiguous localities in the same 

 country. This is especially true as regards the origin or exciting cause 

 of disease. Where the atmospheric, alimentary, and all other observable 

 conditions are nearly identical, occult causes which baffle the closest and 

 most scientific scrutiny, not unfrequently either periodically or regularly, 

 scourge man or beast with disease in one locality, while another one is al- 

 most uniformly exempt from the^e attacks. What English pathologist, for 

 example, has ever assigned a physical cause which would answer, quanti- 

 tatively, as a criterion to decide on the proportionable prevalence of the 

 same malady in other regions — or the existence of which would even prove 

 that the disease existed at all — for the frequent appearance of goitre [bron- 

 chele) among the inhabitants of Derbyshire, and the comparative exemp- 

 tion from it of the inhabitants of contiguous counties ?* The theatres of 

 its especial visitation, in other parts of the world, seem to be equally de- 

 termined by chance — though undoubtedly dependent upon physical causes 

 which have as yet eluded observation. 



It is not astonishing, therefore, that the ignorant down to our own times, 

 and even the enlightened, until a period comparatively recent, should have 

 sought the incomprehensible causes of many diseases, in the regions of the 

 preternatural. Among brutes especially, which were supposed to be more 

 given up to such influences, these phenomena were conveniently assigned, 

 by our English and Scotch ancestors, to 



" some dev'lieh cantrip slight" 



of " warlocks and witches" — the malevolence of an offended faiiy or spite- 

 ful gnome.t 



* I understand that the inhabitants of the adjoining counties of Stafford, Nottingham and Leicester are 

 comparatively exempt from the attack of goitre. 



t In Bums's inimitable Tarn O'Shanter, some of the singular powers once exercised 

 "by withered beldams auld and droll 



Lowping and flinging on a crummock" — 

 and sometimes, though far more rarely, by " ae winsome wench and walie," to turn aside the established 

 laws of Nature and God's providence, arc thus enumerated in describing one of the diabolical sisterhood : 

 " Mony a beast to dead she shot. 

 And perished mony a bonny boat. 

 And shook bnilh meikle corn and bear. 

 And kept the country-side in fear." 

 No one will understand that the witch, in full league with the Devil, had any occasion for mortal fire- 

 arms, in "shooting'' the beasts of her victims. Murrain, and in some cases death, followed a glance O' her 

 " evil eye.'' And even the witches of Bujns are tame every-ilay bodies, compared with those which sweJi 

 the infernal tZrnmaZispfrsonir of Faust, or mingle in the gloomy horrors of Macbeth. 



Two centuries ago, ajid even less, there was not a parish in England, a hill or dell in Scotlnnd, or eyen n 

 colonized nook in the wild woods of America, where witchcraft was not rife ; and wiiltitudts ni everj' ranK 

 in life were consigned to the gallows, the faggot, strniigling. &c., for this crime, by the highest jvaicwi in- 

 (843) 



