ON TliE CAUSES OF DISEASE. 37 



which should asree with the sentiments of ail men desiring to see 

 veterinary science joined in the march of improvement which is 

 now progressing in almost every other department of science and 

 industry. " The immediate effect of profuse and repeated bleed- 

 ing is exhaustion. While this exhaustion continues there Is a 

 diminution of action of every kind, and hence an imposing ap- 

 pearance of relief to the symptoms of disease ; but it no sooner 

 bikes place than an instinctive effort is made by the vis medica- 

 trix natura to remedy the evil hereby produced, and to restore the 

 system to its former balance of power. This balance is called a 

 rallying, or reaction of the living principle. The arteries con- 

 tract to adapt themselves to the measure of blood that remains ; 

 the sensorial organ is roused to the secretion of a large proportion 

 of nervous power to supply the inordinate drain that takes place. 

 During the general commotion, all is in a state of temporary 

 hurry and urgency, and, for the most part, irregularity of action, 

 while the instinctive effort is proceeding. And hence, no sooner 

 is the immediate effect of prostration and exhaustion overcome 

 than the heart palpitates, the pulse beats forcibly with a jerking 

 bound, the head throbs, and the eyes flash fire. Now, it often hap- 

 pens that these concurrent signs are mistaken for proofs of latent 

 or increased vigor, instead of being proofs of accelerated action ; 

 and action, too, that adds as largely to the exhaustion as the de- 

 pletion that produced it; and the unhappy patient is bled a 

 second, a third, and even a fourth time,* till no reaction follows, 

 at which time it is strangely supposed that the plethora or inflam- 

 matorv diatheses is subdued and lulled into a calm, because the 

 patient has been so far and fatally drained of the living principle 

 that there is no longer any rallying or reactive power remaining, 

 and gives up the ghost, in a few hours, to the treatment instead of 

 the disease." This is the case with thousands and tens of thou- 

 sands of valuable animals that annually die in this country, in 



* My attention was recently called to a valuable stallion, which had lately 

 been brought, from Nova Scotia. He was attacked with what the attending 

 would-be physician called "founder," but which was a pure case of acute rheu- 

 matism. In three different bleedings, forty-two pounds of blood had been ab- 

 stracted! and I found the patient so weak and prostrated that he was scarcely 

 able to stand. It seems to me that every man having the least spark of charity 

 for so noble an animal as a horse, should discountenance such outrageous treat- 

 ment as this. 



