378 
SUPERPURGATION. 
seemed anxious for some corn, and when led out, he readily ate 
some fresh grass. Continue the treatment. 
From this time the horse slowly but gradually amended, and 
was soon discharged from my care. 
In this case there is nothing so peculiar or edifying as to 
warrant me in obtruding it upon the public, except that it may 
serve as a peg whereon to hang a remark or two, appertaining to 
the practice of gentlemen “ far vying” (oh! the degrading, tell¬ 
tale word !) their own horses. There is no circumstance so 
galling as this to a young man just entering upon practice, 
after having prepared himself for the duties thereof by days and 
nights of honest application and labour: the dominion of the 
groom, and his consequent airs and self-importance, may from 
habit be borne with some degree of Christian resignation; but 
when a gentleman—a man of education, versed in the beauties of 
ancient literature, and deep in the mysteries of Adam Smith— 
fancies that because he is well acquainted with Greek and Latin, 
and mathematics, and political economy, he must surely be able 
to cure the ailments o f a horse better than a poor veterinary 
surgeon, the case is widely altered; and in few other instances 
does the annoying fact of our small estimation in the country 
force itself so strongly upon the mind. (Be it understood, that 
I do not here allude to this, or any other individual instance; 
for after the horse became my patient he was resigned wholly to 
my management.) A reformation in this respect must be the 
work of time; and it must proceed from a conviction on the 
minds of men, through the evidence of their external senses, 
that the scientifically educated man—the man whose time and 
talents have been devoted to the purpose of gaining a funda¬ 
mental knowledge of his profession, where alone such knowledge 
can be gained, viz. in the dissecting-room—is, indeed, superior to 
him whose practice is based on the profession of a score or two of 
musty, antediluvian u receipts.” This conviction can never be 
generally produced until the veterinary profession has climbed 
much farther up the steep and rugged path of improvement. There 
may be, and doubtless there are, many men of sterling talents, whose 
individual merits have wrought conviction, and done away with 
this practice so insulting to common sense in their own immediate 
neighbourhood ; but, even in such instances, it is a work of 
time, and anxiety, and disgust : yet how many young men are 
there who, quite unprepared for meeting such “disagreeables,” 
are abashed and astonished, and either retire from the con¬ 
test, or, fearful of offending, speak in such an undecided manner, 
that all confidence in them is lost, and years may possibly be 
spent in repairing the blunder of a moment. To such I would 
