52 DADDS veterinary surgery and medicine. 



but does the surgeon imagine that callous will form better, or an 

 abscess be resolved or reach maturity sooner, by general blood- 

 letting and antiphlogistics ? Experience teaches him otherwise ; 

 and in the same manner it may be most reasonably argued tl at 

 such treatment can not favor the natural termination of internal 

 inflammations. 



5th Prop. — That all positive knowledge of the experience of th* 

 past, as well as the more exact observation of the present day, aliki 

 establish the truth of the preceding propositions as guides for tht 

 future. 



Before it is possible, however, to determine with exactitude the 

 value of any practice, it is essential to ascertain the natural dura- 

 tion of the disease we propose to treat. Fortunately, we have 

 now some data which will enable us to arrive at this informatio i> 

 with regard to many diseases. We have seen many severe ease* 

 of pneumonia submitted to homepathic remedies — that no rea - 

 sonable medical man can suppose to be any thing else than inert — 

 yet most of these cases got well, and, I think, may be considered 

 as excellent studies of the disease left entirely to Nature. Many 

 years' experience and close observation have convinced me tha* 

 uncomplicated pneumonia, especially in young and vigorous con ■ 

 stitutions, almost always gets well, if, instead of being lowered, 

 the vital powers are supported, and the excretion of effete pro- 

 ducts assisted. It is in exactly these cases, however, that we were 

 formerly enjoined to bleed most copiously, and that our systematic 

 works even now direct us to draw blood largely, in consequence 

 of the supposed imminent danger of suppuration destroying the 

 texture of the lung. Such danger is altogether illusory, and the 

 destruction to lung tissues, so far from being pi evented, is far 

 more likely to be produced by the practice. Jn fact, the onlj 

 cures in which it occurs are in the aged or enfeebled constitutions , 

 in which nutrients, and not antiphlogistics, are the remedies ind\ 

 catsd. We can, however, readily understand now blood-letting, 

 practiced early, and in young and vigorous constitutions, does les^ 

 harm, or, to use a common expression, is '* borne better," t\\ua 

 when the disease is advanced, or the patient weak, and this be 

 cause then the vital powers are less affected by it. But that it 

 cures the greater number of animals attacked, or shortens th«. 

 duration of the disease, is disproved by every fact with which we 

 are acquainted.. Before ci jsinp we have a few Avords to ofier on 



