164 DALD'S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY 
Bors (Stomacnic AND HEMORRHOIDAL). 
Some persons contend that bots are always injurious. The 
author dissents from this dictum. It is possible that, as in the case 
of intestinal worms, which are now recognized as the scavengers 
of Nature, that the bots are Nature’s hirelings, created and cou. 
missioned to do her bidding, to maintain the integrity of her 
physiological laws. The parent of the bot, as Bracy CLaRK re 
marks, “ sclects her subjects,” or, in other words, pounces on those 
who are not in rapport with Nature, and hence have no business 
to enjcy good health, nor even to live. 
This was the case when the people of the great city of London 
were afflicted with the terrible plague, which ran riot and carried 
off about one-fourth of the inhabitants. The sanitary emissary of 
Nature, whose shield was emblazoned with the motto, “Thus far 
shalt thou go and no further,” pounced upon selected subjects, 
the intemperate, licentious, and the gluttonous, and these who had 
violated Nature’s laws by wallowing in filth in down-cellar loca- 
tions, where the breath of life—pure air—scarcely ever entered. 
These were the selected sufferers. The same is true as regards the 
mortality attending the yellow fever, which made such sad havoc 
in the city of New Orleans some years ago. The medical author- 
ities contend that the disease carried off over one thousand of the 
inhabitants, without touching a single sober or temperate person ; 
hence the plague, the yellow fever, and the cholera may be said to 
be the forces which Nature employs to maintain the integrity of 
her laws. Intestinal worms, found in the intestinal tube of the 
emaciated and the glutton, are said to be Nature’s scavengers, and 
the same perhaps is true of bots. They may be the agents of Na- 
ture, employed to keep the balance of power within her own hand, 
for the purpose, sometimes, of preventing a too rapid multiplica- 
tion of the species; at others, to avenge her for crimes committed 
.gainst the laws of physiology. 
Let us, for example, inquire into the history and habits of some 
of the inferior orders of creation, and we may be led to infer that 
the presence of bots in the stomach of a horse is no deviation from 
the general rule which seems to pervade all creation. Our tenure 
of life depends on the use which we make of it, and the same is 
true as regards the horse. 
Tn the study of physiology, we discover that animals and inserta 
