PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY. 
521 
pared with which, the anxious enquiries and reasonings of the 
human surgeon are the triflings of a child. Beside this, a 
thousand times more exposed to error than the human practi¬ 
tioner, every mistake is detected by close post-mortem examina¬ 
tion. The grave covers not his blunders. If these are disad¬ 
vantages, and often sad annoyances, they are, likewise, stimuli 
to diligence and care; and they are more than this,—the painful 
feeling accompanying them once being subdued, there results a 
buoyancy of mind, an indifference almost stoical, no, not to the 
sufferings of the patient or the interests of the employer, but to 
the hasty decision and unjust censure of the owner of the animal 
or the public. 
Some have spoken of the recklessness of the lower classes of 
practitioners among us—now and then disgracefully expressed— 
the abuse of that independence of spirit, that elastic resistance 
of mind, which the circumstances in which we are placed natu¬ 
rally beget. It is, however, only an abuse of a proper feel¬ 
ing : he who is careless of consequences, as they regard either 
his patient or his employer, is a disgrace to us ; but he who shews 
a timid subserviency to the prejudices or the censures of his em¬ 
ployers, is an enemy to himself and to us. We must re-act 
against the power that is pressing upon us, or we shall never 
gain our proper rank in society or in public estimation ; but, on 
the contrary, encourage oppression, and materially suffer in repu¬ 
tation and in pocket, when we little deserve it. 
Let us suppose a few cases. After a severe blister our assistant 
may have neglected the cradle, and the animal has blemished 
and maimed himself for life: we may have sent a strong and 
somewhat caustic drink, and our apprentice, playing all manner 
of monkey tricks, has poured a portion of it into the trachea and 
destroyed the horse. Engaged in one direction, our assistant 
may have been despatched another way; but he became intoxi¬ 
cated on the road, and reached not the place of his destination, 
and the animal died for lack of assistance. These are awkward 
circumstances, under which it may be prudent to make the best 
of a bad matter, and hush the affair up as quickly as possible. 
But in the fair treatment of disease, he who submits to be 
amerced, or cowers under the threat of legal proceedings, even al- 
vol. iv. 4 B 
