DIAGNOSIS. 



HOW TO FIND OUT THE BEST COURSE OF TREAT- 

 MENT. 



One of the chief difficuUies, which besets even the experienced 

 professional practitioner, is to determine what is really the matter 

 with his patient, especially when first called into a case; without 

 doubt there are distinct types of disease which it is comparatively 

 easy to distinguish at first sight, but the cases which baflfle the 

 honest practitioner to discern right off the reel are occurring very 

 frequently, especially if called upon to state what really is the 

 matter in orthodox medical phraseology; and if the experienced 

 practitioner finds it difficult to discover how the case stands, cer- 

 tainly the layman is placed in a much more difficult position when 

 compelled by force of circumstances to rely upon his own powers 

 of discrimination unaided by professional experience. To assist 

 such a one is the object of this chapter; it is comparatively eas}' to 

 write a description of the various diseases affecting the horse, but 

 it is not so easy to explain to the untrained novice how he should 

 proceed. Certainly an intelligent layman, who is endowed with 

 powers of observation and discrimination, can the more readily 

 learn what to do in cases of urgent necessity when guided by the 

 principles of homoeopathy, than can the allopathist with his vague 

 and uncertain generalities; still for any one to turn to practical 

 account a work on medicine, written in the plainest and most un- 

 conventional language, demands the exercise of keen observation. 

 Many and varied are the indications which horses of varying tem- 

 perament and differing character exemplify when they first begin 

 to feel ill. These indications will be referred to further on; but 

 first let it be understood that having observed that something 

 appears wrong with your animal, what should you do to make 

 sure you have not formed a wrong impression; in other words, 



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