6 
HIPPO-PATHOLOGY. 
(labouring under acute disease) is too far overcome, probably, to 
be recovered. Understanding these important distinctions be- 
tween veterinary and human pathology and therapeutics, it will 
no longer remain matter of surprise, why in the one case blood- 
letting should be so much oftener practised than in the other. 
Independently, however, of the absolute necessity there mostly is 
for venesection in veterinary practice, there is still another reason 
why we, oftener than surgeons, are compelled to employ it ; and 
that is, the consideration, on two accounts, that our patients should 
not lie long ill : first, because his services are required by his 
master, and cannot for any length of time be dispensed with ; 
secondly, because expenses are going on for his keep, &c. although 
he himself is in a condition to earn nothing. These considerations 
it is which induce us to bleed in many a case that would recover 
quite as surely and as completely without blood-letting ; but not 
in so short a space of time. 
In regard to medicine, bearing in mind how requisite it is in 
general that what we exhibit should take speedy and due effect, 
we should take care — at least in all cases attended with danger — 
to run no risk in prescribing as to the event ; by which I mean, that 
in a case wherein we conceive purgation to be highly desirable, 
it is our duty to insure, by proper dose and kind and form of 
medicine administered, the wished-for effect without running the 
hazard of creating a necessity for a second dose, considering how 
long each dose requires to pass through the alimentary canal. Al- 
though this remark applies with more force to purgatives than to 
other medicinals, still it is one that ought not to be lost sight of in 
the ordering of any medicine in cases of disorder at all urgent. 
External remedies turn out of no use in acute or painful mala- 
dies, unless they exert greater action than, or make an impression 
superior to, the morbid one that is going on. The insertion of a 
rowel or seton, in a case where inflammation is raging with a 
rapidity which, if not checked in the course of a few hours, must 
prove mortal, is as futile in practice as piercing the ears of children 
for ophthalmia, or slitting dogs’ ears for congested brain : the 
counter-irritant must be energetic, promptly and violently ope- 
rative, to work any benefit in such cases. 
Decision in practice is a faculty most desirable in any medical 
man : to the veterinarian it is often absolutely indispensable. 
A man who has a sick or lame horse must be informed by the 
practitioner he employs to administer to him, not only whether 
there be any probability of his dying, but, should his restoration 
appear probable, in what space the cure is likely to be effected, in 
order that he (the owner) may make a calculation in his own mind 
what the cost of keep, &c. will be during his servant’s indispo^ 
