ON VETERINARY IMPROVEMENT. 
79 
be received as unequivocal symptoms of rabies, my opinion is not 
decided. Of one thing, however, I am certain, that mere redness 
of texture arising from extravasated blood is too often mistaken 
for inflammation. 
ON VETERINARY IMPROVEMENT—RED-WATER- 
DROPPING, &c. 
By Nimrod. 
ChristmaB Eve, 1839. 
Dear Sir,— This being the season of universal congratulation and 
compliment, I know of nothing, save the Great Event itself, on 
which I can offer either the one or the other, to yourself and the 
profession, with more propriety and sincerity, than the successful 
endeavours now making to combine veterinary practice with 
agricultural science, intimately connected as they naturally are. 
When we reflect upon the extensive loss which the breeders and 
owners of cattle, sheep, and swine, annually sustain in Great Bri¬ 
tain—to an amount I fear to state, because it would scarcely be 
credited—and the feeble exertion that has hitherto been made to 
diminish it, the importance and value of this step may be justly 
estimated by this class of persons, as indeed by the community 
at large. When also we consider to whose hands the majority 
of the diseases of the above-named animals have been committed, 
together with the not-to-be-doubted fact, that even the rude and in¬ 
digested treatment administered by them has, to a certain degree, 
been successful, what may not be expected as the result of that 
which is based on anatomical and physiological knowledge of the 
diseased animal in the first place, and of a sound theory of medi¬ 
cine, and its operation, in the next ? In the language then of my old 
friend Mr. Turner, “ there is about to be a judicious application of 
the veterinary art to all domesticated animalsand could they, by 
a faculty they do not now possess, be made sensible of this fact, 
how grateful would they feel for the announcement of it! When 
this“ hitherto almost untrodden path,” as Mr. Spooner justly terms 
it, has been entered upon, the whole circle of veterinary philosophy 
will be complete. 
Touching neat cattle—I have reason to believe that the disease 
called red-water, or the cause of it, is very little understood by the 
common cow-leeches throughout England. The cause is undoubt¬ 
edly involved in much mystery in many instances. Witliin the range 
of my own experience, 1 liave been at a loss to know why I should 
have two or three cases of it annually on one farm, and not one 
on another, though not more than a mile distant; and when I re- 
