•220 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



localities of disease, explain certain operations in the animal economy, anj 

 renrler terms intelligible, it would be time thrown away. 



In pathology somewhat, and to a much greater extent in the systems oi 

 therapeutics adopted, [ have found it necessary to cut clear from all Eiig 

 lish ovine veterinarians. If this is regarded as presumptuous, I have only 

 to say tha* the testimony or opinions of that man are worth little who sc 

 far pins his faith on another's views, as to disregard the plain evidence of 

 his own senses. The salutary rule of the law is, each witness testifies tc 

 what he has seen, and to what, crediting the assertions of his own senses, 

 he knows. It is for the investigating tribunal to decide what weight shall 

 be attached to the testimony. That tribunal, in the present case, is the 

 public. 



But in reality, a discrepancy of views on the above subjects, does not ne- 

 cessariljj imply an error on either side. The pathology of diseases fre 

 quently does not coincide, as between different climates and countries, and 

 sometimes, singulaily enough, between contiguous localities in the same 

 country. This is especially true as regards the origin or exciting cause 

 of disease. Where the atmospheric, alimentary, and all other observable 

 conditions are nearly identical, occult causes which baffle the closest and 

 most scientific scrutiny, not unfrequently either periodically or regularly, 

 scourge man or beast with disease in one locality, while another one is al- 

 most uniformly exempt from these attacks. What English pathologist, for 

 example, has ever assigned a physical cause which would answer, quanti- 

 tatively, as a criterion to decide on the proportionable prevalence of the 

 same malady in other regions — or the existence of which would even prove 

 that the disease existed at all — for the fiequent appearance of goitre {bro?i- 

 c/jocf/f) among the inhabitants of Derbyshire, and the comparative exemp- 

 tion from it of the inhabitants of contiguous counties 1* The theatres of 

 its especial visitation, in other parts of the world, seem to be equally de- 

 termined by chance — though undoubtedly dependent upon physical causee 

 which have as yet eluded observation. 



It is not astonishing, therefore, that the ignorant down to otir own times, 

 and even the enlightened, until a period comparatively recent, should have 

 sought the incomprehensible causes of many diseases, in the regions of the 

 preternatural. Among brutes especially, which were supposed to be more 

 given up to such influences, these phenomena were conveniently assigned, 

 by our English and Scotch ancestors, to 



" some dev'lish cantrip elight" 



of " warlocks. and witches" — the malevolence of an offended faiiy or spite- 

 fill gnome.t 



* I understand th;it the inhabitants of the adjoining counties of Stafford, Nottingham and Leicester are 

 eomparalively exempt from the attacic of goitre. 



♦ In Bums's inimitable Tam O'Shanter, some of the singular powers once exercised 



"by withered beldams auld and droll 



Lowping and tiinging on a crtjmmock" — 

 •ad sometimes, thoiiah t'nr more rarely, by "ne winsome wench and walie," to turn apide the established 

 laws of Natura and God's providcrire, are thus enumerated in describing one of the aiabolical sisterhood : 

 " Mony a beast fo dead she shot. 

 And perished mony a bonny boat, 

 And shook hnilh meikle corn and bear, 

 And kept the country-side in fear." 

 No one will understand that the wntcn, in full league with the Devil, had any occasion for mortal fire- 

 4rms, in "shooting"' the beasts of her victims. MuiTain, and in some cases death, followed a glance of hei 

 "evil eye."' And even the witches of Burns are tame everyday bodies, compared with those which swell 

 the infernal drnmatis persnvit of Faust, or mincle in the gloomy honors of Mncbelh. 



Two centuries ago, and even less, there was not a parish in England, a hill or dell in Scotland, or even r 

 colonized nook in the wild woods of America, where witchcraft was not rife ; and muUitndes in e-very rank 

 In life were consigned to the ga.Iows, the faggot, strangling. &c., for this crime, by the higktm juduMl m 



