A CASE OF LAMENESS. 
43 
five hours’ very moderate work to do per week, and, by possibility, 
when the weather was fine, and the groom disposed to take an 
airing, as many more of exercise. The horse was lively, his coat 
lay well, and the evacuations were normal : his pulse was quiet, 
and his respiration tranquil ; and on having a handful of corn 
thrown into the manger, he ate it heartily : the sum total of the 
unfavourable symptoms was, that sometimes he did not clear his 
rack and manger by the morning, and now and then failed to do 
so in the middle of the day. I then waited on the owner, and, 
in the simplicity of my heart and the greenness of my inexperience, 
told him that I did not detect any disease about the animal, and 
that if his exercise was increased and his feeds diminished, I had 
no doubt he would soon be as hearty as ever. About a week 
after, the gallant officer called on the medical friend who had 
named me, to express his surprise at his having recommended a 
practitioner so incompetent that he could not detect the disease under 
which his horse was suffering, when, on consulting another person, 
the case had been clearly made out, and a course of treatment de- 
cided on, from which the patient was already much better. Now, 
had I had the nouse then — may-be 1 have acquired it since — 
to have asserted that if the cause was not in the fore part of the 
digestive organs it must certainly be in the hind, why I should 
have secured a good patient, and probably been extolled as a very 
discriminating and intelligent practitioner. My worthy friend 
wound up his account of the interview with the following valuable 
remark : — “ Take it for granted, my dear sir, that our patients, as 
well as the owners of yours, have decidedly made up their minds 
that they are ill before they require our assistance, and therefore 
when they do require it, in God’s name let them have it.” It is 
now many, very many years siifce this excellent piece of advice 
was given; and I do declare, upon my reputation, that, with the 
exception of one or two weak moments, I have invariably acted 
on it since. Therefore, again I say, let not the last sentence of 
my quotation be too contemptuously passed by. 
On Sunday evening, Nov. 22d, an aged bay gelding, which had 
been for some years in the possession of his owner, was being 
driven, somewhat about the rate of five or six miles an hour, 
along the Hammersmith road, a perfect level, in the phaeton in 
which he usually worked, when, without any premonitory notice, 
without the slightest stumble or halt, he suddenly stopped. The 
coachman, fancying something might be amiss with the harness, 
immediately got down. Nothing of the sort, however, was per- 
ceptible ; and, on endeavouring to move the animal, it was found 
that nothing could induce him to draw the carriage another step. 
He was at once taken out ; and on again attempting to move him, 
