504 
INFLUENZA IN HORSES. 
me to detest his name. As a physiologist I esteem him a bigot, 
and as a man I hope he is no worse. He has established nothing, 
but he has confused much. He will die to be forgotten, and 1 
cannot while he lives respect him. That he is a mistaken man I 
hope—I even feel certain he is deceived: for it is impossible, at 
least it is impossible to my idea, that any human being in a sane 
state should imagine the secrets of Nature are to be forced from 
the sufferings of her creatures. The dog has principally been M. 
Magendie’s victim. The animal he has selected for the display of 
his heartlessness proves at once his cowardice and his want of 
sensibility. Without feeling and without courage man is but an 
intellectual brute; and in him the highest gift of his Creator only 
adds to his guilt or his shame. If the dog would not lick the hand 
that punishes—if the generous and trustful animal did not, in the 
nobleness of perfect submission, trust entirely in the charity of man 
—if it had been less affectionate, less confiding, or less enduring, 
then M. Magendie had not made it the subject of his so-called but 
mis-termed experiments. I have read his inhumanities : I have 
endeavoured to ascertain what fact or principle they illustrated. 
I have studied till my health has gone; but, from all that person 
has attempted to demonstrate, I profess myself to have learnt 
nothing. I have to thank him only for time wasted and labour 
thrown away. All his writings have impressed me with is disgust 
for him personally as an individual, and contempt for his claim to 
be regarded as a physiologist. He has notoriety without solid 
reputation, and I could not, without consenting to play the hypo¬ 
crite, consent to meet the man. My refusal to sit in his company 
maybe of little consequence; but English veterinarians are in 
nothing more distinguished than in their observance of the dictates 
of humanity; and, as I hope many beside myself have declined a 
similar invitation, I give, with your permission, publicity to my 
reasons, in order that, right or wrong, my motives may be on 
record. 
Now let me turn to matter of a more pleasing character. In 
your last Number, in the leading article, entitled “ Observations on 
the existing Influenza among Horses,” I was delighted to read the 
following remark : “And this paroxysmal accelerated breathing we 
have seen more remedially tranquillized by ether than by blood¬ 
letting.” I thank you sincerely for the generosity which dictated 
the lines. When I ventured to bring before the notice of my pro¬ 
fession the medicinal properties of ether, you were among the very 
first to test the truth of my observations. Since you gave publicity 
to that result, no one has recorded any circumstance either in sup¬ 
port or in contradiction of my assertions. In the first instance, 
you will remember your own inferences were opposed to my con- 
