646 bourgelat’s introductory lecture. 
compares them together; and, convinced that all that he wants to 
guide him most surely to the disease is enclosed in the interior of 
the animal, he recalls to his recollection the examination of those 
who had exhibited similar symptoms, and from all he forms his 
opinion of the case and its treatment. 
Suppose an obscure case. Are the symptoms that he observes 
such as are likely to mislead him ? or do they conduct only to in¬ 
conclusive and vague notions; or, so far from having a certain 
connexion with each other, do they exhibit indications that mu¬ 
tually contradict each other; or do they evidently belong to and 
announce different diseases ? He attends to the latest symptoms; 
the clearest and the most decisive ; he makes use of them to un¬ 
ravel others that are complicated and mysterious, and to lead 
him to the discovery of the evil, its seat, and its cause. If no¬ 
thing strengthens his first suspicions, he adopts the last resource 
which remains to force nature to explain herself more plainly. 
He administers slight doses of certain medicines that appear to 
be most suitable to the case, and, by their increasing or dimi¬ 
nishing the prevailing symptoms of the disease, he probably 
obtains a glimpse of the real state of the malady. 
If he is consulted respecting cases attended by altogether un¬ 
usual symptoms and complications of symptoms, and which bear 
no resemblance to any that his instructors or himself have ob¬ 
served, these obstacles, so far from disheartening, animate and sti¬ 
mulate him. He collects all his powers. He revolves in his 
mind a thousand times the principles in which he has been in¬ 
structed, and endeavours to bring them to bear on the case in 
question; and w 7 hen the application of them appears to be im¬ 
possible, and the subject is still involved in impenetrable mystery, 
he limits his efforts to combat the disease in its most marked 
effects; and frequently, by these means, he succeeds in the most 
appalling circumstances, where he at first neither knew nor could 
discover the origin or the character of the malady. 
He must adopt the same method in treating most of the epi¬ 
zootics, w r hich are commonly produced by some. singular and 
extraordinary state of the atmosphere or the weather, or by the 
deleterious qualities of the herbs on which the animals have fed. 
