582 
PRACTICE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE 
master with regard to her food, she was as bad as ever. I was 
persuaded that l should never get her perfectly sound unless I 
had her entirely under my control ; indeed, 1 feared that a cure 
was now a very doubtful matter. She was with some difficulty 
got to my stables, and no one could interfere with my manage- 
ment of her. In a far less time than I expected she was again 
at work. This is one case out of a thousand, and yet the proprie- 
tor will not take warning. As for our empirics, they have no idea 
of what is meant by the word diet ; but are persuaded that the 
animal knows how to prescribe for himself much better than they 
can prescribe for him, and that, consequently, it is absurd to 
deprive him of food when he is eager to devour it. If, therefore, 
in consequence of this imprudence, the disease with which the 
animal was affected re-appears during his convalescence, the em- 
piric does not recognize it — he gives it some other name — perhaps 
he treats it a little differently, or he pursues his former course ; 
for he has a very limited circle of curative means, and usually 
seizes at hazard the first formula that comes into his head. It is 
rare indeed for them to employ any other measures than the most 
powerful excitants and the strongest tonics, differently combined, 
but always having as their base, or, more properly, their auxiliary, 
wine, which they consider as an universal panacea. Antiphlogis- 
tics, sudorifics, and narcotics, are totally unknown. Purgatives 
and diuretics they often have recourse to, and occasionally in 
outrageous doses ; but these medicaments are of far inferior value 
in their estimation than their tonics and their wine, and many 
animals are lost through neglect of their use and value. 
Such are the empirics of our southern departments, and, in a 
great measure, of the whole of France — such their method of cur- 
ing every disease, and the medicines which they employ in every 
case. Their apprenticeship and their practice are passed in a 
smith’s in a neighbouring village. There, in six months, or a 
year at most, they have learned a dozen scientific terms, strangely 
pronounced, and which they apply to as many hundred diseases. 
Another dozen serve to designate their catalogue of drugs. Un- 
fortunately, every adept has not the same aptitude to learn; and 
thus the names of diseases and drugs are curtailed, or lengthened, 
or disfigured, so that in one canton it is impossible to recognize 
or understand the meaning of another. 
DIVINERS, CUNNING MEN, &C. 
Another division of the restorers of the health of cattle whose 
talent, in effrontery at least, is superior to that of the black- 
smith, and who assume the name of (levins — cunning men — 
also abuse the public credulity. These men have a kind of uni- 
versal knowledge, for they protect and cure both men and ani- 
mals. Some of these individuals, having located themselves in 
