ON VETERINARY CONSULTATIONS. 
427 
value. It was a case of suppressed strangles. The tumour was 
at length beginning to come forward ; but the owner was impa¬ 
tient. We received a note, in which we were requested to attend 
at a certain hour, in order to meet Mr.-. We were punctual 
to our time, and we found not Mr.-, but one of the persons 
about his establishment. He had been in the stable about five 
minutes ; and, without the common courtesy of waiting even that 
brief time, he had satisfied himself about the case, and had his 
lancet out, and in another half-minute would have bled the 
horse. 
Years passed, and we were afraid to call in anyone; and 
when we saw our way tolerably plainly, w'e resisted, so far as we 
could properly do so, the wish of our employers on this point; 
and, perhaps, our practice is yet a little tainted by this dislike. 
We have, however, of late years, occasionally fallen in with gen¬ 
tlemen, and honest men, in these meetings ; and yet, if we dared 
to tell them so, we were not quite satisfied even with them. It 
is not yet the consultation that we could wish. 
One friend is generally as punctual as ourselves to the time; 
he is never before it; and we have our private confab out of ear¬ 
shot of the groom, and in which he is put in possession of all the 
circumstances of the case. He then examines the horse, and 
asks what farther questions he thinks proper. We retire again, 
and determine on the nature of the disease, and the course indi¬ 
cated by the prevailing symptoms. We afterwards see the owner, 
if he is in the way, or rejoin him if we had retired from him; 
and my friend says, '"Mr.-and myself have agreed that the dis¬ 
ease is so and so ; it will probably terminate so and so. Mr. - 
has been giving the proper medicines, and we must continue them 
with a little modification : or we have determined to see what a 
change will do in such a case ; these changes are sometimes 
useful. The case cannot be in better hands.’’ All this is very 
well; and we do not think that any bribe could tempt our friend 
to cross the path of another practitioner, or do him a serious 
injury.-But he is a theoretical as well as a practical man ; he 
has his peculiar views (as we just now hinted most of us have) On 
many or on almost all diseases,^—their causes, nature, and modi- 
