491 
IMPORTANCE OF THE VETERINARY ART. 
and practice of every art and pursuit of man. There is scarcely 
one of them that does not furnish some useful facts, or striking 
analogies, which may be applied to practical purposes, or to the 
support of some important principle in medicine, Lven the 
science of morals is capable of affording aid to the healing art, by 
its influence upon the understanding through the medium of the 
passions. It produces this effect in proportion to the extent of 
the objects to which we direct our benevolence. The physician 
who loves the whole human race, will always be actuated with 
more zeal to extend the usefulness of his profession, than the 
physician whose affections are confined to the limited circle of his 
habitual patients. His zeal will be more active, and more im¬ 
pressive upon his understanding, should he descend in the over¬ 
flowings of his benevolence from the human species, and embrace 
in his studies and labours the means of lessening the miseries of 
domestic animals. This part of the brute creation has large 
demands upon us. The design of this lecture is simply to point 
out the duty and advantages of studying their diseases, and the 
remedies that are proper to remove them. The subject is an inte¬ 
resting one to private gentlemen as well as to physicians; and 
I entertain too high an opinion of the good sense and correct views 
of medical science of my present audience to believe, that a few 
remarks upon it will be deemed an improper introduction to a 
course of lectures on the institutes and practice of medicine. 
We are bound, in the first place, to discharge the important 
duty to domestic animals which I have mentioned, by the relation 
which has been established between them and us by the Author of 
Nature. They were created at the same time, and from a portion 
of the same dust of which our great ancestors was formed. They 
are the only part of the brute creation over which man has retained 
his dominion since his banishment from paradise. W e are to them, 
says Dr. Hartley, the vicegerents of God, and empowered to 
receive homage from them ; and we are obliged by the same tenor 
to be their guardians and benefactors. Their subjection to death, 
and all the diseases and pains which they feel in common with us, 
are the effects of the same rebellion against theGovernor of the Uni¬ 
verse, which subjected Adam and all his posterity to the same 
evil. 
The disease of the animals which still roam the forests, and 
refuse to be subject to man, are few in number, and generally 
of so mild a nature as to yield to the operations of nature. But 
this is far from being the case with domestic animals. Like the 
human race, they acquire new and violent diseases by civilization, 
or by the manner of life to which their connexion with us, and 
their subserviency to our interests and pleasures, expose them. 
