OF THE VETERINARY SURGEON. 
641 
possible. You may send your answer to Mr. F.’s care, as I go 
out of town for a few days to-morrow morning. I am, sir, See.” 
Our friend was not the man tamely to submit to any tiling 
like this; and the following reply was hastily penned and dis¬ 
patched. 
-, -18 — 
<l Sir,—I have this moment received your note, dated Saturday, 
the 7th, at the contents of which I am more than surprised. In 
it you say, that from what Mr. C. had stated, you have no 
doubt but that I had made a sacrifice of your horse ; or, at least, 
that he had died in consequence of the operation of bleeding ; and 
that you consider me responsible to you for his loss, and you call 
on me to make you a proposition, without mentioning what pro¬ 
position you want, or on what grounds you make such a demand, 
that I might have had an opportunity of inquiring whether 
those grounds are true or false. But is it possible that you can, 
for a moment, suppose that I must be accountable to you or any 
other person for the successful termination of every operation that 
I have, or may yet have to perform ? the thing is absurd. Why 
not make a surgeon accountable for the death of his patient after 
the amputation of a limb ? Nay, why not try him for murder or 
manslaughter when his patient dies after the operation of bleed¬ 
ing ? Was ever such a proposition advanced ? Was it ever be¬ 
fore imagined that physicians, surgeons, or veterinary surgeons 
are to be made accountable for the death of their patients, 
after they had done every thing in their power to save them. Had 
I not performed the operation myself; had it not been performed 
in a proper manner; had I not paid every attention to your 
horse, both at the time of the operation, and also after the ani¬ 
mal had repeatedly injured the part, by rubbing it on the man¬ 
ger and scratching it with his hind foot, from the itching of the 
mange, with which his whole body, and with which his head and 
neck were in particular affected ; had he not been treated, in 
short, in every manner as I would have treated my own horse, nay, 
even with more care than I w r ould have bestowed on my own, in 
consequence of your absence, and the trust you had put in me—I 
might have expected reflections in consequence of your horse’s 
death ; but after the operation was performed as it ought to have 
VOL. V. 4 It 
