440 review — blaine’s canine pathology. 
practice, and betook himself into the country, “ where the ex- 
penses of a sporting establishment” in a few' years forced on 
him a new course of life. He first “ accepted a commission in 
the North Gloucester Militia,” whence he volunteered his ser- 
vices to the Medical Board, and was provisionally appointed 
surgeon to the 40th Regiment, with which he went to Holland. 
From foreign service he had returned but three weeks, when he 
was, out of his turn, again ordered abroad, and this time to the 
West Indies; whither refusing to go, he left the army, and his 
services became cancelled. Foiled in obtaining fresh employ 
to his liking, Blaine now retired once more into the country, 
occupying his days there ‘‘in sketching, shooting, or fishing,” 
and his evenings “ in arranging his materials for the First 
Edition of the Veterinary Outlines .” Retirement, however, 
not suiting for long Blaine’s “ naturally active habits,” he 
again came to London, having meanwhile published his “Out- 
lines,” which “insensibly and unexpectedly” drawing him into 
“correspondence and practice on the diseases of horses and 
dogs,” determined him to “devote his professional energies to 
those subjects.” He did so, and soon found a remunerating 
practice, which he continued for twenty years, refusing, in the 
course of the time, flattering offers to “translate his professional 
services, first to India, and next to Russia.” These refusals 
Blaine never found reason to “repent;” on the contrary, as he 
adds, “The retirement I have for some years enjoyed is still 
employed in editing new editions of my former works, and col- 
lecting materials for others connected with the improvement of 
the persons and treatment of our domestic animals.” 
So chequered a professional life as we have been culling the 
heads of, may challenge veterinary biography for a parallel. 
Blaine, indeed, was “ a rolling stone.” Had he from the first 
steadied down to the practice of that art in which he in after years 
became such a proficient and favourite, he would, like others 
we could name, have likewise had his “ gathering of moss.” 
Blaine’s earliest works*, written under circumstances which 
* A Concise Description of the Distemper in Dogs. 4th Edit. Boosey, 1806 ; 
A Domestic Treatise on the Diseases of Horses and Dogs. 4th Edit Boosey, 
1810. These are the only primitive works of Blaine we have been able to lay 
our hands on. — Reviewer. 
