r 
564 
Frtmnarp 3>uri$pruHeiwe* 
EMPIRICISM. 
We extract from the Journal Theorique a humorous yet 
annoying account of the triumph of empiricism, and the degra¬ 
dation of the veterinary profession in some parts of France. 
Perhaps the experience of most of us would supply cases too 
closely resembling it in our own country. 
Lantier, called “ Le Cure of the great parish/' lives near 
Montereau, of which he says that he is a proprietor. He was 
once a monk of the order “ de Citeaux.” He passed his youth 
in that celebrated abbey, of which he was the steward. Having 
the charge of the domesticated animals of that rich community, 
he included among; the various functions of his office that medical 
routine, erroneous and absurd, which among persons of his 
profession, was so commonly allied with those notions of the 
supernatural agency of sorcery which had been bequeathed to 
them in the traditions of the predecessor of Solleysel. That 
author was his favourite hero—his oracle. 
Compelled to fly from his convent when the revolution broke 
out, he became an assistant priest, and was, twelve or fifteen years 
afterwards, suspended by his bishop on account of a transaction 
similar to that which now brought him before the tribunal of 
Provins. No longer being able to live by the altar, he had 
recourse to witchcraft—from cure he became empiric. This pro¬ 
fession was better than the other. 
■V* * i \ . 
Medicaslre impudent, ignare et sans adresse 
II se fait charlatan, lie peuvant chanter masse; 
Ancien moine empirique et pretre dehonte, 
11 jongle, et rit tout bas des sots qu’il a dup£s. 
Nothing was talked of in the neighbourhood of Montereau 
but the skill of the cure of the great parish. Both men and 
beasts flocked from many a league around to benefit by his 
wondrous science; and then, if by chance the constitution of 
the biped or the quadruped, or the sanative power of nature, 
triumphed over the disease and the impostor, it was Hosanna 
to the cure of the great parish! what a wonderful man is 
the cure of the great parish ! 
The cows of Sebille, a farmer at Fontaines, had been fre¬ 
quently subject to abortion. Not knowing to what to attribute 
his misfortune, he thought that a spell had been cast over his 
dairy—that the demon of abortion (Vavort.on ) had taken posses¬ 
sion of his farm, and, in a word, that he could not do better 
than to go to the diviner. His landlord, a man of sense, opposed 
