304 COMPENDIURI OF THE VETERINARY ART. 



In the treatment of extensive lacerated 

 wounds the first object is to remove any dirt, 



measure to nature in the treatnaent of wounds and ulcers ap- 

 peared to him to arise from negligeace ; and in the excess of 

 his zeal, during the time I visited m^ out patients, he endeavoured 

 to compensate lor my apparent omissions by his own industry. 

 Finding several cases unusually obstinate, I was led to make some 

 inquiry into the business, which was soon explained, when in- 

 formed that this indefatigable practitioner had used nearly an 

 ounce of lunar caustic (argentum nitratumy in a fortnight. 

 This man has since had the presumption to set liimself up as a 

 veterinary practitioner, and now deals out his caustics and 

 opposes nature without control. 



It has since appeared, that this man was induced to offer his 

 services, by supposnig tliat such an employment would after a 

 short time be considered by the public as a sufficient sanction lor 

 his practising the veterinary art. 



The celebrated St. Bel, first professor of our veterinary college, 

 in his obser'/ations on vetermary medicine, justly remarks, " that 

 at this time the art appears obscured and bewildered by the ill- 

 placed confidence of the owners of horses upon the blacksmith 

 »)t the parish, upon illiterate and conceited grooms, or upon a set 

 of ignorant and presuming men, infinilely more dangerous than 

 all the rest, who, arrogating to themselves the title of doctors, 

 distribute their nostrums to the destruction of thousands, whose 

 ▼aried disorders they treat alike, without consulting nature or 

 art, either about the cause or the effect. — Miserable animal! 

 thou canst not complain, when, to the disease with which thou 

 art affected, excruciating torments are superadded by the un- 

 meaning efforts of ignorant men, who, alter pronouncing a 

 liackneyed common-place opbiion of thy case, proceed with all 

 expedition to open thy veins, lacerate thy flobh, cauterise thy 

 sinews, and drench thy »tomacb with drugs, adverse in general 



