232 
THE DANGER OF DRENCHES. 
quite so well. For the past there can be no remedy. Whatever 
mischief draughts may have done, no man can be responsible. He 
does enough who forbears their administration, so far as he can, 
whenever he is aware of their danger. 
Mr. Markham thinks that, even though draughts should prove 
dangerous, it is not quite kind to my pupils or to other practitioners 
to arm a discontented employer with such knowledge. I never 
said it was kind. I did not write to bestow kindness upon either 
pupil or practitioner, but to reveal a truth very important to both. 
If the employer learn it, and make an unjust use of it, his crime is 
not my fault. I published it where the profession would find it ; 
not, as has been done, in a provincial newspaper, to be seen by em- 
ployers, and untold to practitioners. The same objection, with the 
same weakness, may be made to the publication of every discovery. 
If any danger attend bleeding, balling, castration, neurotomy, or any 
other operation, he who discovers the danger and the way to avoid 
it must, according to Mr. Markham, keep the discovery to himself, 
in case any discontented employer should learn it, and find some 
cunning mode of oppressing his veterinarian. If such be not the 
caution of a man without knowledge and without courage, I won- 
der what dictates his caution. 
Mr. Markham thinks once more. He thinks I lack civility 
and courtesy. In that thought he is not, perhaps, so far wrong 
as in some others. I have never aimed at either. The civility 
which would conceal or disguise vice by refusing it a name, and 
the courtesy which renders to impotence and ability, to villany and 
to virtue, the same homage, I despise very sincerely, and shall 
not willingly learn. I may confess to severity of expression 
without implying that I have departed from the truth. But I wish 
not to be cruel. Since Mr. Markham pants so fervently for a few 
civil sayings, he shall have such as I can grant without falsehood. 
He is a gentleman of such varied qualities, that one who is not 
acquainted with him may be truly unfortunate : he knows so much, 
that he is astonished and dismayed when he hears that another 
knows more ; so courteous, that he would not term the villain vile ; 
such a sincere admirer of veterinary science, that he is afraid its 
truths will not maintain their worth in opposition to discontented 
men ; so hopeful to contribute a mite to its onward progress, that 
ignorance cannot delay his endeavours ; in such haste to refute a 
proposition, that he overlooks its conditions ; so eager to decide, 
that he determines before he understands, and refutes that which 
no man has asserted. He is nearly as good as an experienced 
veterinarian, having seen Mr. Mavor treat one hundred and twenty- 
seven cases of influenza. 
