THE PRESENT CONDITION OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 583 
tice had not enlightened his predecessors. Was it by adherence 
to a mere physical fact that Newton recognized the force of 
attraction 1 The phenomenon which roused his giant mind was 
familiar to every schoolboy. Was it by trusting to “ practical 
experience” that our glorious countryman, Harvey, discovered 
the circulation of the blood ! His progenitors had practised for 
centuries, and still remained in ignorance. In all these cases 
the reasoning faculties of the educated man were called into 
energetic action; the facts were observed and noted, and, further, 
their causes were sought out, the laws which governed them 
were analysed, until unlooked-for and startling consequences 
became apparent. From the circumstance of a falling apple 
was deduced the force that regulates the universe : — such is 
science! that science which people mock and oppose. Then 
talk kindly of uniting with “ practice !” — “ science with prac- 
tice !” — as though some new combination must be effected — as 
though science should be honoured by the union, instead of look- 
ing on practice without science as a monster that dared not shew 
its front in a civilized society. 
If under any conditions it is necessary to possess knowledge — 
correct and systematic knowledge — surely it must be where the 
complicated organism of the animal body requires regulation : if 
ever practice based on imitation becomes positively criminal, it 
must be where its rude hand is applied to repair a machine of 
whose construction it is profoundly ignorant, of whose functions 
it retains no conception. With the most learned, success in the 
treatment of disease is not too frequent ; — how must it be with 
the ignorant! The untiring in the pursuit of knowledge are 
fain to confess that much is still beyond their ken ; the man 
who combines all the requisites of his art observes with pain 
that his remedies too often fail : what shall we say of him who, 
armed with his musty prescriptions, the property of his father’s 
father, strong in an experience of twenty years spent in the 
pursuit of error, rashly offers his assistance ? How true it is 
that “ fools will rush where angels fear to tread !” But we are 
told, the man is frequently successful — of course he is; animals 
will live sometimes, in spite of all we can do to prevent them. 
We know instances where exposure on a frosty night has cured 
a dying horse of inflammation of his lungs; but a cold night is 
not therefore hailed by practitioners as a sovereign remedy. A 
case is recorded where an unsuccessful blow from the knacker’s 
pole-axe restored an animal suffering from the last stage of lock- 
jaw ; but concussion to the region of the brain is not, at present, 
much in favour as a curative agent for that disease. Because 
a case recovers under a certain plan of treatment, it by no 
means follows that the remedy is discovered: it is only by the 
