598 ON THE EFFECTS OF CERTAIN MEDICINES 
in the animal economy, and where, left to itself, it would exert its 
power. Did they wish the medicine to act sooner or more power¬ 
fully, they added a substance which was capable of fixing it. 
Did they wish that its efficacy should be more diffused, tney 
associated with it a drug which was able to open for it a further 
passage. Some medicaments ran through the system with too 
much rapidity—others were too slow in their operation: it was 
necessary to retain the first, and to quicken the action of the 
second. They added to their formula substances which possessed 
these properties. They had ingredients to guide the principal 
remedy and to prevent it from wandering, and these guides or 
sentinels very opportunely quitted the principal remedy when it 
was near the part on which its power was to be exerted. 
With principles so accommodating, and yet so loose and vague, 
they were never embarrassed, for they had drugs prepared to 
operate under every circumstance of disease. They had at their 
command medicines to cure even incurable diseases. Their 
materia medica was composed of an incoherent mass of opinions in 
themselves incoherent. Veterinary science was a rude collection of 
incorrect ideas, puerile observations, illusory means, and formulae 
as fantastically conceived as they were fastidiously collected. 
It has been rightly said, that it would not only be a useful 
thing, but that it is absolutely indispensable, to simplify the vete¬ 
rinary materia medica; but no one has pointed out the method by 
which this important result can be accomplished. 
Messrs. Huzard and Desplus, when giving us some excellent 
instruction on epizootic maladies, in 1796, affirmed that it was 
time to recal animal medicine to the simplicity from which it 
should never have been permitted to wander. Base cupidity 
alone has prevented the practitioner from following this wise 
counsel: and what has been done ? We have continued to collect 
from every quarter monstrous and complicated formulae, and 
veterinary medicine yet dwells in the domains of empiricism and 
mere routine. 
What course shall we pursue to avoid the reproaches of Bichat, 
and simplify our'practice, as he advises veterinary surgeons to do ? 
Instead of giving the reins to imagination, let us study by the 
aid of observation and experience the action of every simple 
medicine on the economy ot our domestic animals ; let us inject 
them into the veins, by which means we shall be able to verify 
all that has been said of each drug. In the mean time, let us 
simplify the materia medica. It will be an economy of time and 
of money. 
We may conclude these observations by remarking, that 
the art of prescribing depends not only on a knowledge of 
