PHYSIC. 85 



acknowledges' everything emanating from tlie schools to be correct — 

 would, the author imagines, be puzzled to discover any necessary con- 

 nection between the processes of balling, blistering, firing, and bleed- 

 ing ; yet somehow the four operations are associated in veterinary prac- 

 tice. A ball reduces the bodily activity ; a bleeding lowers the action 

 of vitality ; irritants are thought to stimulate organs to which they are 

 applied, but to lessen the general tonicity. An animal subjected to the 

 first action appears fitted to dispense with the second ; while the last two 

 seem somewhat similar to the first. But there is no accounting for in- 

 congruities when men, deserting reason, consent to adopt routine as a 

 guide in the treatment of so capricious a development as disease. 



Bleeding To lose blood was once deemed a healthful custom by the 



human race. Then, horses were regularly depleted every rise and fall. 

 An old practitioner can remember the period when, on a Sunday morn- 

 ing, he beheld long sheds full of agricultural quadrupeds, waiting to be 

 bled. The fleam used to be struck into the first horse ; then the entire 

 row were, in succession, similarly treated. The operator afterward re- 

 turned, and, pinning up the wound which had been made in the neck of 

 the first animal, again moved down the line, pinning as he went. No 

 account was taken of the amount lost by each patient, nor was any pains 

 thought needful to control the current that flowed upon the ground ; but 

 the creatures did not all suffer an equal depletion. The fleam was soon 

 struck ; to pin up, however, took a comparatively long time for its per- 

 formance. The first horse of the group, therefore, lost but little blood; 

 while the last of the line bled for a considerable period before its turn to 

 be attended to arrived. 



The foregoing anecdote will show how nice our fathers were in their 

 operations; but it is sad when we reflect that all this carnage was a 

 sacrifice made to a mistaken idea. Human medicine has abandoned the 

 antiquated custom. Veterinary physic, however, is not quite so versa- 

 tile; still many quiet spots in the country may be found where old 

 physic is in force, both with the employers and the practitioner. Dogs, 

 even in the metropolis, are sometimes bled ; and there still exist persons 

 who esteem the use of the lancet upon these animals to be a laudatory 

 accomplishment. Cats were, formerly, operated upon; and the author 

 knows an aged lady whose medical practice was confined to depleting 

 grimalkins. There exist, even at the present enlightened period, few of 

 the equine species which do not bear several scars, each testifying to a 

 separate operation. Raise the jugular vein in the neck of any animal, 

 by simply stopping the downward current that flows through the vessel ; 

 it is ten to one but numerous circular prominences will bulge forth, to 

 denote the medical activity which has been lavished on the quadruped. 



