THE NERVES OE SENSATION. 
185 
told that I did by a slight tremor of the limb. He sat day after 
day, and he gazed on me with an inquiring yet confiding look ; 
and, in short, I returned him to his owner perfectly sound, and 
nothing betraying the accident to the eye. I see enough here to 
repay me for the occasional indignities I once experienced when 
I scrupled not openly to devote my time and little talent to the 
alleviation of the diseases of these animals ; but I must not permit 
myself to be led too far. 1 have here either a degree of fortitude 
to which the self-called superior biped has seldom a legitimate 
claim, or, conjoined with much that I admire, 1 have a less 
intensity of pain than the human being endures. I choose the 
latter alternative : it is consistent with his proceedings who 
“ tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” and it is consistent with 
physiological and anatomical observation. 
Caution . — I say not this in extenuation of those who have 
made the terms “ physiological experiment” terms of disgrace 
and abomination ; or of others who are butchers, torturers wor- 
thy only of the cells of the inquisition, rather than operators. 1 
am not estimating the quantum of suffering of which our patients 
are susceptible — I am not seducing you from the object and aim 
of our profession, the diminution of that suffering be it what it 
may ; I am only stating a physiological fact, and one that it is 
pleasing to reflect on; and I would still, as ever, tell you, that the 
practice of the veterinary art can only be securely and honourably 
based on science and humanity. 
The Sense of Touch , altogether different from common feeling, 
is to a considerable degree withheld from or obtuse in the inferior 
animal; at least there is this distinction, that in him it is sub- 
servient to little more than the purposes of life, while in man it 
is intimately and necessarily connected with the mind. It is 
one of the means, simply considered, by which we acquire intel- 
ligence ; and, connected with other senses, its importance can 
scarcely be overrated. In some of the other senses — in hearing, 
in sight, in smelling, and in the power of muscular motion ge- 
nerally — man is excelled by many of the lower classes of beings ; 
but the immense range given to the organ of touch — the power 
of prehension and adaptation which it enjoys in consequence 
of its connexion with that wonderful machine the hand — and 
especially the results of its association or co-operation with the 
organ of vision, whether, consistently with the purpose of our 
lecture, we regard the power which they give the surgeon to de- 
tect and alleviate disease, to extirpate morbid growths, to remove 
extraneous substances, to perform a thousand manipulations 
connected with the relief of pain and the prolongation of life; or 
whether we take a higher, holier ground, and regard the fruit of 
their co-operation, in the productions of the pencil of the artist, 
