586 REVIEW — HORSES; THEIR VARIETIES, &C. 
remedy empirically set against it, to be able to comprehend and 
practise “ the whole art of medicine.” In the instance of the 
human subject there exist wholesome checks to the practice of 
these dangerous doctrines. Man, pro tanto, is himself a judge of 
what will do him good or harm ; and if he be not, he is at least 
apprehensive for his life or his limb; and even if he be neither 
one nor the other, yet will the law, in such a case, step in and 
protect him from harm. But the poor abused dumb animal has 
in this respect no protector. Nobody will step to his aid, and say 
to one, “ You shall not give this horse poison,” or to another, 
“ You shall not cut off this dog’s leg for experiment.” No! the 
poor brute must quietly and patiently submit to any cruel or — 
what is pretty well tantamount thereto — any empirical or insane 
medical practice that his humane (]) master or other amateur doc- 
tor may subject him to, though it be diametrically certain that his 
limb or his life must pay the forfeit of the misdeed. 
This is the evil which cheap and popular works have for the 
most part inflicted on veterinary medicine ; a class from which we 
feel much pleasure in being able, on this score, to except Mr. Ri- 
chardson’s little work, though it be of the catalogue of the cheap 
serials of the day. 
“ The less,” says Mr. Richardson, “ the amateur doses or quacks 
his horse the better. Fortunately, veterinary surgeons are suffi- 
ciently numerous, and no written advice, however copious in its 
details, could at all supersede their services.” Preface , p. iv. 
Again, in the very last sentence in the book : “Whenever a horse 
worth saving displays symptoms of illness, send without any loss 
of time for — not a village farrier or “ cattle doctor ” — but (for) a 
regularly educated and diploma’d VETERINARY SURGEON.” p. 97. 
This disarms veterinary criticism ; at least, nobody has any great 
right after this to find fault with Mr. Richardson’s chap, xviii, on 
the “ Diseases of the Horse ;” though, for any utility it can serve, 
we opine it might as well have been altogether omitted. But we 
suppose our author had his “ instructions,” since in his “ Preface ” 
he tells us, “ all this detail was to be compressed into my hundred 
pages.” p. 1. 
The least curtailed and most interesting part of the epitomized 
epitome before us is that devoted to the history of the horse. Mr. 
