114 Domestic ANIMALB. 
VII. 
DISEASES AND THEIR CURE. 
Throw physic to the dogs,—Shakspeare. 
I.—HYGIENE. 
£6. HROW physic to the dogs,” if you will, but, 
Nt; be assured, they are quadrupeds of too much 
/ good sense to swallow it; and the other domes- 
% tic animals will hardly take, except under com- 
mS pulsion, what their canine companions and pro- 
tectors thus reject. You will find less difficulty in forcing it 
down the throats of their more frequently diseased and oftener 
doctored masters. 
A large portion of almost every work on domestic animals 
is taken up with directions for the treatment of their diseases. 
Our limits do not permit us to dwell long on this point, nor do 
we deem it necessary. 
In their wild state, animals are ordinarily subject to few if 
any diseases. They live according to the laws of their being— 
live naturally and healthfully, and, unless they meet a violent 
death at the hands of man or of some of their natural enemies, 
die a natural death. Our domestic animals, as they are gener- 
ally managed, live under conditions less favorable to health, 
and sometimes, although with comparative infrequency, get sick. 
The fault is generally in the keeper or breeder, and not in the 
animal or in the conditions inseparable from its domestic 
state. With animals, as with men, disease arises from some 
infringement of the organic laws; but their masters, and not 
themselves, are responsible for the infringement. When they 
get sick, however, in consequence of the false conditions under 
