VETERINARY MATERIA MEDIC A. 
37 
and Therapeutics at Alfort: he therefore brings with him all the 
authority which station and practice can give, and we expect to 
find in his work the combined experience of the two old vete¬ 
rinary schools of France, and that not only as it regards the 
effects of medicines on the horse, but on all the objects of the 
veterinarian’s care. 
M. Moiroud enters fully into the natural and chemical history, 
the preparation, the action on the living system, the dose, and the 
mode of administration of every drug in the French pharma¬ 
copeia, and with reference to every animal. If we w ere to com¬ 
plain of his mode of treating his subject, it would be, that he 
treats somewhat too largely of the chemical properties of drugs, 
and not sufficiently of their medicinal effects, or of the characters 
of disease in which they are of most use, and the circumstances 
which may modify or subvert their influence. There is sufficient, 
perhaps, of their general influence and power, but not of their 
application to particular and varying symptoms and states of 
constitution ; enough of science, but not enough of practice. It 
is, however, a very valuable work, as enabling us to draw r a 
fair comparison between the French system of therapeutics and 
that of the English veterinarian. We abridge M. Moiroud’s 
introductory explication of the principles of therapeutics. If 
we do not interrupt the narratioii by any remarks of our own, it 
is not because we always assent to the theory, but we w ish to put 
our readers in possession of it. He observes, that the action of 
medicines may be considered as either chemical or essentially 
vital. In their chemical effects they obey the laws of dead 
matter; and although the intimate nature of their vital or physio¬ 
logical influence cannot be explained, we can determine the laws 
and conditions of its influence. These present themselves under 
two views, a negative and a positive—the first diminishing the 
intensity of the vital pow r ers; the second exciting to increased 
action the part to which they are immediately applied, or the 
frame generally; and this increased action depending on the op¬ 
position w hich exists between the constituent principles of the 
medicine and the tissues on which they exert their energy: the 
former repress and calm that vital action which is running into 
excess; the latter rouse against themselves the vital power 
which resides in the organs. The former withdraw the organ 
from certain causes of excitation, or renders it less sensible to 
excitement, as a poultice shields a phlegmonous tumour from 
contact with the air, and from other exterior causes of excite¬ 
ment, while it relaxes the tissues, and diminishes their irritability; 
and as diluting and cooling drinks increase the aqueous part of 
