DICTIONARY OF THE VETERINARY ART. 253 



subject." For the information of our readers, we will detail 

 the treatment recommended by the above author. We pre- 

 sume that every man of common sense will come to the con- 

 clusion that the disease could not be otherwise than fatal 

 under such unwarrantable barbarity. We have no personal 

 disrespect for Mr. Youatt : it is the system of treatment 

 recommended by him that we war against; a system that has 

 killed more than it ever cured. Mr. Youatt observes, " The 

 rational method of cure would seem to be, first to remove the 

 local cause j but this will seldom avail much. The irritation 

 has become general, and the spasmodic action constitutional. 

 The habit is formed, and will continue. It will, however, be 

 prudent to endeavor to discover the local cause. If it be a 

 wound in the foot, let it be touched with the hot iron, or 

 caustic, and kept open with digestive ointment. If it follows 

 nicking, let the incision be made deeper, and stimulated by 

 digestive ointment ; and if it arise from docking, let the op- 

 eration be repeated higher.* In treating the constitutional 

 disease, efforts must be made to tranquillize the system ; and 

 the most powerful agent is bleeding. [Yes, most power- 

 ful to kill.] Twenty pounds of blood may be taken away 

 with manifest advantage. There is not a more powerful 

 means of allaying general irritation ; the next thing is to 



* " First, to remove the local cause ; but this will seldom avail much." 

 Then why torture the poor brute ? We need not trouble ourselves about 

 the particular nerve affected to enable us to relieve a sympathytic disease, 

 when we have a medicine — lobelia and milkweed, or Indian hemp — that 

 will relax every nerve in the animal. " If it be a wound in the foot, let it 

 be touched with the hot iron." This is a means better calculated to injure 

 than relieve. We should apply, at once, the means that are known to acton 

 the whole nervous structure. " If it follows nicking-, let the incision be 

 made deeper ; and if it arise from docking, let the operation be repeated 

 higher." What beautiful philosophy this is ! — make one disease, to cure 

 another. Is it strange that " this is one of the most fatal diseases ? " Is it 

 not a wonder that any live ? Must not their escape be attributed to the con- 

 servative power of the system, in spite of the violence done ? When Mr. 

 Youatt recommends cutting the tail a little higher, to cure a disease that 

 was produced by the same operation, — viz., docking, — he puts the author 

 in mind of the man who filed the edge of his razor, to sharpen it. 



