84 DUTY OF INQUIRY. [BOOK I. 



is at work, or when it is that a man of judgment 

 and real sound learning in his art has undertaken 

 the treatment of this valuable animal in the dis- 

 tressful hour of sickness. On this head we are 

 not ashamed, after the lapse of nearly half a century, 

 to own that we once wept over the sufferings of a sick 

 animal which died of the medicines administered by 

 a stubborn self-willed farrier, who could read and 

 write, and talk, give a drench, and drink himself — 

 nothing more : he could not think, of course could 

 not compare one disease with another, nor mark 

 the difference that exists betwixt two or more that 

 are frequently and fatally mistaken for each other. 

 And here, once for all, we cannot refrain from thus 

 early insisting most strenuously on one point, 

 which, therefore, we shall not have to repeat when 

 we come to notice certain barbarous practices per- 

 petrated by some such men, and the not unguilty 

 practice of other physic-giving horse doctors ; and 

 this is, in short, whoever of them dares to under- 

 take the administering of medicines to this incom- 

 parable animal without paying especial attention to 

 the subject-matter that is handled in this chapter, 

 commits an unpardonable act of inhumanity on his 

 suffering patient, and of gross dishonesty towards 

 its owner. The remedy for a disease is not always 

 to be found in medicine ; preventives never. Pur- 

 gatives are not only the most obvious means of cure, 

 but the best, the least dangerous, and those which 

 promise in the readiest manner to dispose the most 

 vital function to resume its wonted action ; whilst 



