AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON. 
137 
persons so ignorant of the diseases of quadrupeds, and the me¬ 
thod of treating* them, as medical men; because they think that 
they have only to enlarge the dose of any medicine, in order to 
produce in the quadruped the effect which they observe in the 
human being*; and because they are misled by analogy, a con¬ 
clusive mode of reasoning when admissible, but the question of 
its admissibility being very hard to decide, and depending on a 
thousand circumstances of w hich the surgeon is not aware. 
A knowledge of the veterinary materia medica will prevent 
many unsatisfactory, cruel, and disgraceful experiments on vari¬ 
ous animals. When I know r that tw r elve drachms of corrosive 
sublimate may be given to the sheep, and eighteen drachms to 
the ox, without the slightest effect, and yet a few grains sprinkled 
on a wound will destroy either of them; that three drachms of 
opium in infusion, and which being thus given, would enter into 
the true stomach, will produce no narcotic effect—no effect what¬ 
ever on the sheep; that senna will destroy the sheep by inflam¬ 
mation, but will not purge ; that two ounces of aloes will destroy 
the same animal, and without purging; that a fourth of a grain 
of emetic tartar w ill vomit, while a drachm of aloes will scarcely 
purge the smallest dog, and that scarcely any quantity of opium 
will destroy him, I can have no faith in the effect of poisons, 
or of any medicaments on these animals as referable to human 
practice ; and I should reprobate a long list of recorded experi¬ 
ments as inconclusive, indefensible, and barbarous. 
There is one point to which I w ould particularly allude, and 
in which veterinary science would be of immense importance to 
the medical man: it has reference to a malady whose progress 
no skill has been yet able to arrest, and which is the opprobrium 
of the veterinary art—I mean rabies—hydrophobia. This is a dis¬ 
ease, however, which may be prevented, although not cured; but 
the mode of prevention may be torturing to the patient, and 
even fatal to the future usefulness of the patient. I will suppose 
that the father of a large family has been severely bitten by a 
dog under suspicious circumstances. It is a lacerated w ound—it 
is impossible to cut it out—it is almost impossible to bottom it with 
the caustic. Amputation must be resorted to if any thing* be 
done; and amputation of a limb that will prevent him from 
earning his future livelihood, or supporting a family dearer to 
him than himself; and, if the operation be not performed, the 
most dreadful of all deaths may ensue. A surgeon is consulted: 
the family are surrounding him, watching every varying expres¬ 
sion of his countenance, and awaiting with unspeakable anxiety 
his decision. That depends on the nature of the disease in the 
animal by which he was bitten. How is that to be ascertained ? 
What does he know about it? Perhaps he has never seen a mad 
VOL. iv. u 
