414 
CURSORY REMARKS. 
soul, what, appertaining to that noble animal the horse — his plea- 
sures, his pains, as well as his proud career — can be otherwise 
than interesting ? In illustration of this assertion, allow me 
a short anecdote : — “ I do not wonder,” said a nephew of mine to 
me, the other day, in London, — a young barrister, by the way, 
who never had a horse in his life, neither had his father before 
him one, unless it were a coach-horse, or a hack ; — moreover, he 
is a reading man, and a writing man as well, being the author of 
an excellent paper in the last Edinburgh Review, — “ I do not won- 
der,” said this would-be Lord Chancellor, “ at your writing, con 
amove, on the horse, for it is certainly a most interesting and de- 
lightful subject. I have lately been beguiling my leisure hours 
with reading (as I cannot ride him) The Horse, in the Farmers’ 
Series of the Library of Useful Knowledge, from beginning to 
end ; and I must say I have been both pleased and instructed by 
the perusal.” However, to business. 
Your own lecture on animal pathology, Mr. Editor, I shall, of 
course, pass over, being in itself far too scientific for me to offer 
an observation upon, further than to express my approbation of 
the clear and satisfactory manner in which the various points are 
handled, as well as the just conclusions drawn from them. The 
phenomena of animal life were once considered beyond the ken of 
human intelligence ; but science will not be baffled in her pursuit 
after cause and effect, and the farther she penetrates into the 
beautiful labyrinths of nature, the more clearly she discovers those 
works of order and wisdom which characterize the productions of 
Omnipotence. The very first case, indeed, reported in this num- 
ber, — one of navicular disease, by Mr. Spooner, although de- 
prived of part of its interest by an unforeseen accident — isdtself a 
happy illustration of this incontrovertible fact. The detection 
of this disease, and, as I apprehend, the only cure for it, neuro- 
tomy, present to my mind a completely new era in the domestic 
history of the horse, still, perhaps, but in its dawn. 
The circumstance of the cow that retained her foetus is quite 
new to me, and is another instance of nature’s powers of relieving 
herself under untoward circumstances. Still, from the number of 
calves I have seen drawn from cows by force , I have been in- 
duced to marvel at the too common absence of what may be 
called “ labour-pains” in these animals, sufficiently strong to 
cause parturition without such help. As Mr. Cartwright, who 
gives you this case, resides within sixteen miles of my native 
place, he may have heard of the mortality of calves by the dis- 
ease called ** planet struck,” which I spoke of in my last paper. 
For my own part, I have never seen or heard of it since, although 
I have occupied land in four different shires. 
