324 Transactions of the Amehican Institute. 



are modified in a very extraordinary manner by that painful operation,, 

 we onght not to expect as macli from them as when left in possession 

 of all the organs nature provided for them. If the brain is not 

 slightly arrestsd in development or growth, no one questions the 

 change produced in the nervous system by such inflictions. Animals, 

 therefore, must be reduced in precisely the same degree, proportioned 

 to their physical powers and reduction of cerebral or brain influence, 

 which emasculation accomplishes. It is no part of this essay to discuss 

 the improvements in slaughtered meats, to show how fattening is 

 made easy by following the old practice. When unmolested in the 

 way referred to, all the animals, wild and tamed, may be taught so 

 much and so many things that aj>proach reasoning, as to make them 

 curiosities which are contemplated with surprise and admiration. 

 But we are treating specifically and especially of the intelligence of 

 animals, again repeating the proposition that geldings can only be 

 managed by reason of their instinctive sense of fear, while the unin- 

 jured possess a faculty of estimating motives, and form affectionate 

 attachments which others never do with the same extent. If the brain 

 is defective in any respect, impressions are less vivid, not so easily 

 retained, and slower in its operation, because it is an imperfect organ. 

 There is another suggestion in regard to the treatment of domestic 

 animals which addresses itself to the kindly disposed, and with pro- 

 priety might receive the fostering care of the Legislature. It relates 

 to their treatment when sick or maimed by accidents to which they 

 are exposed. Immense losses of property in cattle and horses are 

 annually occurring in the United States in consequence of the scarcity 

 of educated veterinary physicians and surgeons. Cities of magnitude 

 sustain a few of that class of practitioners, but in the country, a horse 

 doctor is proverbially a vulgarian and an ignoramus. Some of them 

 are not only distinguished for their ignorance in all respects, but they 

 are criminally so in prescribing for that noble animal the horse, of 

 whose anatomy they do not understand the first principles, nor the 

 diseases to which he is predisposed. Extraordinary mixtures, which, 

 as frequently given as otherwise, increase the pain and hasten a death 

 that might have been prevented, left to the conservative course of 

 nature. The absurdities of their theories are as ludicrous and ridicu- 

 lous as their medicines generally are inappropriate and injurious. 

 Our fickle climate, coupled with the hardships to which horses are 

 exposed by reckless drivers, brings on inflammation, fevers, neuralgia, 

 rheumatic soreness, spasms, besides lesions of the lungs, &c., very 



