208 
ON CHOLERA IN DOMESTICATED ANIMALS. 
wish that the parts should be exhibited to the class on the fol¬ 
lowing day; and that I would offer what remarks 1 thought 
proper regarding them and the nature of the malady. I some¬ 
what reluctantly consented to this; but the want of time for pre¬ 
paration, and the impossibility of providing myself with sufficient 
notes on the subject, compelled me to give a less particular 
statement than I could have wished. I was, therefore, obliged 
to content myself with the following observations, which, a few 
days afterwards, were reduced to writing, in consequence of a re¬ 
quest from the Medical Members of the Board of Health, with 
the view of being published in connexion with numerous facts 
which they had collected ; but which intention, on account of 
the immense number of publications that appeared upon the sub¬ 
ject, was abandoned. As, however, they are drawn up, they 
may not inappropriately be recorded in The Veterinarian. 
The reader will remember, that this paper was written in, and 
principally refers to, the spring of 1832. 
If I am correct in the analogy that exists between the disease 
which I have observed amongst the most important of our 
domesticated animals and that which affected man, a new view 
of it is forced upon our notice ; and one which, if general (veter¬ 
inary) medicine were cultivated with the care it deserves, would 
lead the physicians to many useful conclusions which ’particular 
(human) medicine does not afford him. I offer this remark, be¬ 
cause some medical writers have laughed at the idea of a horse 
having cholera; supposing that we had mistaken bots for it, 
or I know not what; or that we had strangely confounded a 
cow that was hoven with one affected with this disease—triumph¬ 
antly but disgracefully proclaiming their own ignorance of ge¬ 
neral pathology. They forgot, or rather they did not know, that 
the horse is almost entirely precluded from exhibiting one of the 
common symptoms of cholera by the mechanical construction 
and situation of his stomach preventing him from vomiting; and 
that, from a similar cause, ruminating animals neither do nor can 
exhibit all the symptoms of this disease. Had these medical 
men who would thus try to laugh us out of our opinion, set 
themselves to discover the true nature of the malady, instead of 
expending their ingenuity in the pursuit of contagion, they 
might have come to more liberal conclusions : or had they stated 
what was the true pathological condition of a cholera patient, 
we could then have better compared notes with them. 
In order clearly to illustrate what I have to advance regarding 
the disease, I think it proper to take a survey of the state of 
health of our domestic animals, as I found it for some time prior 
to the present epidemic. 
