Hi Rush^ on studying the diseases of Animals, 



with all expedition to open thy veins, lacerate thy flesh, cau- 

 terize thy sinews, and drench thy stomach with drugs ad- 

 verse in general to the cure they engage to perform."^ 



5th. It is our duty and interest to attend in a more especial 

 manner to the health of those domestic animals Vvhich consti- 

 tute a part of our aliment, in order to prevent our contracting^ 

 diseases by eating them. Certain vegetables upon which they 

 feed by accident, or from necessity, impart to the milk and 

 flesh of some of them an unwholesome quality. Great labor 

 sometimes has the same effect. A farmer in New-Hampshire, 

 who had overworked a fat ox a few years ago in the time of 

 harvest, killed him and sent his flesh to market. Of four and 

 twenty persons who ate o' it, fourteen died, and chiefly with 

 diseases of the stomach and bowels. Putrid exhalations pro- 

 duce obstructions and ulcers in the livers of cattle, sheep and 

 hogs which render them unfit for alnnent. They are more- 

 over always unhealthy during the season in which they propa- 

 gate their species ; hence^ the wisdom of that church which 

 substitutes fish for flesh during a part of the spring months. 

 Even the heats in summer, in middle climates, lessen the 

 wholsome quality of flesh, — hence the propriety of living 

 chiefly upon vegetables with a small portion of salted meat 

 during the summer and autumnal seasons. 



6th. We are further called upon to study the causes, seats, 

 and remedies of the diseases of domestic animals, by the dut' ^^ 

 which we owe to our country and to humanity. The products 

 of agriculture and commerce are often lessened by a fatal epi- 

 demic, brought on by diseases which blast the character of 

 animal provisions ; and many poor families have been left to 

 suffer all the evils of penury and famine, by the death of a 

 single horse, upon whose labor, of a cow, upon whose milk, 

 or of a hog upon whose flesh, they had relied exclusively for 



* General Observations on the Art of Veterinary Medicine, p. 16, 17 



