244 OBSERVATIONS ON THE VETERINARY ART, AND 
hydrocyanic acid? Yet all such experiments can be, and have 
been, legitimately performed by veterinary surgeons. 
No one can for an instant wish to detract from the knowledge, 
science, and skill of the human practitioner ; but all these have 
been brought about by the ardor of those engaged in the pursuit. 
It is not so long since but the “ barber surgeon,” the “ apothecary,” 
or, as he was then called, the “ leech,” were upon a similar foot- 
ing with the “ farrier” or “ cow-leech :” indeed, the latter were 
thought the most of, and very frequently the whole were com- 
bined in one and the same individual. 
This advancement from barbarism and empiricism has been 
brought about by the talent and perseverance of its members 
during a period of about 250 years, aided by the knowledge 
obtained from the lower animals. 
The veterinary art continued, after its separation from its before 
twin-sister, to advance but very slowly, and the last fifty years, 
during which it has existed as a recognized profession, has not 
been taken advantage of to the extent that ought to have been 
done. Reasons enough could be given to account for this laxity ; 
but it is sufficient for my purpose that it is so, yet it is but just 
that the opinions of men of research, who record the working of 
nature’s laws, should be received with the respect due to them. 
It must be too simple a truth to require more than mentioning, 
that those who pass their lives amongst animals should be better 
able to appreciate the changes which disease induces amongst 
them, as also the phenomena of health, than those who, from their 
very pursuits, are debarred from more than a casual glimpse of them ; 
and hence it is easy to account for the fact, that whenever a human 
practitioner has attempted to point out remedial agents or general 
modes of treatment for animals, they have always proved failures. 
The PRINCIPLES which have been established by the schools of 
human medicine and surgery apply with equal force and truth to 
veterinary medicine and surgery; but though the principles them- 
selves must not be departed from, yet the modifications which 
disease assumes, the deviations in the modus operandi of remedies, 
the power of resisting disease which different animals possess, not 
only as regards species, but also as regards individuals of the 
same species, — all these various points are so much affected by 
local situation, or good or bad general mangement, and this to 
a greater degree than man under similar circumstances ; so that 
when we consider all these incidental modifications, so apparently 
dissimilar, are results from similar causes, that disease often 
appears to have little or no connexion with a type recognized as 
existing among animals of its own kind, much less does it appear 
to be connected with a general type existing throughout other 
