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THE VETERINARIAN, MARCH 1 , 1833 . 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.— Cicero. 
In our number for January, we briefly requested that some of 
our country readers would favour us with the result of their ex¬ 
perience and observation, and the bearing of particular circum¬ 
stances of temperature, moisture, soil, or food on the health or 
disease of domesticated animals. We now reiterate the request, 
and earnestly desire this small boon from our numerous readers. 
In pursuit of the stern path of duty—impelled only by an 
earnest desire to elicit the truth, and animated by a resolute 
determination to record it, we may well invite,—nay, stepping a 
little out of our ordinary sphere, we demand—^the assistance of our 
brethren in this important labour. 
We do not require from any individual a general history of 
endemic complaints, but simply an account of those diseases 
which are considered to be prevalent and peculiar, and likewise 
those that are not prevailing in his immediate neighbourhood. 
The causes of diseases are various—often obscure, and some¬ 
times totally unknown. In order, then, to extricate ourselves 
from the almost countless difficulties with which we are sur¬ 
rounded, it is indispensably necessary that their proximate 
causes should be closely traced, and accurately defined^ 
By this method we shall obtain a number of facts, from which 
we may safely draw our conclusions, and be able to unravel the 
mysteries of many diseases that are now considered beyond 
our ken. 
By a strict attention to the course of nature, natural philosophy 
discovered many of her laws, and has very happily applied 
them to account for many phenomena which before were very 
ill understood. The whole object of philosophy, as Newton 
expressly teaches, is reducible to these two heads: “first, by 
just induction from experiment and observation, to discover the 
laws of nature ; and then to apply those laws to the solution of 
the phenomena of nature.” 
As long as philosophy was built not upon its substantial basis 
