USE AND ABUSE OF BELLADONNA. 
189 
ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF BELLADONNA. 
By the same. 
I wish to say a few words about the real utility of the 
above agent. Many of our profession have a confirmed pre- 
judice against it : this conviction, in my opinion, springs from 
not clearly understanding its action. It is usually given in 
pneumonia, or in diseases supposed to be of such a character, 
for I may here state my conviction that true pneumonia is, 
in the present age, but seldom witnessed ; the majority, the 
very great majority, of the imaginary cases of pneumonia 
terminate fatally. Will you pardon me if I attempt an 
explanation of this fact? 
Pneumonia was not formerly one half as fatal as it is at 
the immediate moment ; this is easily ascertained, but how is 
the circumstance to be accounted for? Has the veterinary 
profession stood still ? Has the impulse of the present century 
not reached veterinarians? I leave those who have eyes to 
watch, and have kept them open, to answer the question. 
However, supposing our progenitors to have been an extra- 
ordinary clever race, nevertheless we know their plan of 
treatment, there is quite sufficient left to us to instruct us 
did we please to follow it : still means which were remedial in 
our grandfathers’ hands, fail in ours ; the horse is still the 
same, and men are men ; then why is it that like means 
administered to meet a similar disease have an opposite effect ? 
Suppose, and only suppose, that the disease insisted upon 
in the lecture-room has all but died out, as many diseases 
that once ravaged this land are known to have done ; con- 
jecture that the affection which once was an every-day 
occurrence is now a very rare event ; imagine also that another 
disease is apt to take on all its more leading or more pro- 
minent symptoms ; let us ask the initiated whether there is 
at the present time any known disorder which is apt to take 
on a peculiarly simulative character? Am I wrong when I 
answer the above inquiry in the affirmative? Can I be 
accused of error when I point to influenza as an ailment very 
much disposed to assume the likeness of any other of the 
61 ills that flesh is heir to V* 
Influenza, I take it for granted, is, in a number of cases, 
mistaken for pneumonia. Now, a sedative would be fatal 
in so debilitating a disorder, and it is in this way I chiefly 
account for pneumonia being so much more fatal at the 
present time than formerly. Pneumonia now has a peculiar 
