RECEIPT BOOK. 149 



ter. I think I have not known it to fail above once 

 in four times at an average, in all the instances 

 which have come under my observation; and some 

 of these I knew to be injudiciously performed, the 

 disease not being seated in a point whicq the wire 

 could reach. I have at times cured a dozen, and 

 ten, in regular succession, without failing once, 

 and I have again, in some cold seasons of the year, 

 killed three or four successively. 



Sir George M'Kenzie has insinuated in his 

 book on sheep, that I was the inventor of this 

 mode of cure — but it is by no means the case. 



The practice, I understand, has been in use, a- 

 moug shepherds for ages past; but they were of- 

 ten obliged to perform it privately, their masters, 

 like the professors about Edinburgh, always argu- 

 ing, that the piercing of the brain must necessari- 

 ly prove fatal. Sir George has, however, misun- 

 derstood my account in this matter in the High- 

 land Society's Transactions; I did not mean to in- 

 sinuate thit it was with pleasure I discovered the 

 art of curing them in this way, but only my suc- 

 cess in that art. I mentioned in these Transao- 

 tions, that when I was a shepherd boy, for a num- 

 ber of years 1 probed the »kull of every sturdied 

 sheep I could lay my hands on, without any re- 

 gard to whom they belonged, and likewise took ev- 

 ery opportunity of visiting my patients as often as 

 possible; and as the country around me swarmed 

 with them every spring and summer, my practice 

 of course, was of prodigious extent. It was sever- 

 al years before I was sensible of failing in one in- 

 stance, which, however, it was often impossible to 

 ascertain, they having left the spot sometimes, be- 

 fore I could again go that way: but many a valua- 



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