40 
REVIEW OF MOIROIJD’s 
second are variable, difficult to see or produce, depending on 
many circumstances, which we are unable at the time to appre- ' 
ciate, and very materially on the morbid state of the animal, or 
of certain parts. If a strongly stimulating medicine is given in 
a case of dropsy accompanied by debility, being received into 
the stomach, its influence is spread by sympathy or absorption, 
and the temperature of the body is augmented, and the circula¬ 
tion and respiration are quickened, and the pulse becomes more 
frequent and stronger, and all the functions acquire an increased 
degree of activity. These are the primary eftects; and being 
repeated, other effects are perceived, termed secondary: the ab¬ 
sorbents are roused and the fluid is taken up, and carried off in 
the form of urine or of perspiration. It is therefore necessary to 
study, not merely the primary, but the secondary eftects of me¬ 
dicines, which may be beneficial or injurious, which may con¬ 
tribute to the re-establishment of health, or threaten the life of 
the patient. This is the distinction between rational and empi¬ 
rical practice: the first is directed by a knowledge of the primi¬ 
tive, and, after serious consideration of all the circumstances of 
the case, an assurance of the secondary effect of certain medi¬ 
cines : the second administers a certain remedy against a certain 
disease without troubling himself about either the primary or 
the secondary effects of the medicine. 
In studying the character of disease, we are naturally led to 
consider that those medicines alone will be beneficial which have 
the property of exciting in the organ a series of actions, opposite 
to those which caused the disease, or which the disease produced; 
and this would have the appearance of being the only theory 
which is sound, or sanctioned by experience. No one would 
doubt that, in acute inflammation, sedatives would prove the 
most likely means to abate excessive action; yet there are many 
diseases, characterized by increased action, which would be 
aggravated by this course of treatment. There are many chronic 
inflammatory affections w 7 hich will only disappear under the ex¬ 
hibition of stimulants. 
The skill of the practitioner consists in understanding the 
indications of the case which come before him; and he w ill only 
arrive at these by attending’ to the kind of disease, its particular 
form, intensity, seat, causes, tendency tow ards certain termina¬ 
tions, and many other circumstances which will be overlooked 
by the careless veterinarian. From a comparison of these 
he will judge of the indications of cure. He will inquire what 
he has to do, what object to accomplish. The experienced sur¬ 
geon knows too w ell, that these indications will be often multi¬ 
farious, confused, contradictory. In inflammation of the bow els 
