MEMOIRS OF A VETERINARY SURGEON. 
255 
severely with cantharides and biniodide of mercury ointment. 
In twelve hours his pulse had risen thirty beats in the minute. 
The next day the blister was repeated, and the pulse rose 
tw enty beats in the minute more ; and on the third day he died. 
The severe counter-irritation appeared to sweep through his 
entire frame. But the reader may perhaps argue, “ Is not 
this experiment a proof of that law you seem inclined to 
ignore? Was it not the absence of internal inflammation 
which enabled this external inflammation to produce such 
effects?” I would say, I think not; the impression on my 
mind is that the nature of its operation would have been the 
same in either case; but in internal disease it would in all 
probability have increased the constitutional disturbance, and 
materially aggravated the intensity of the malady. As it was, 
its power of working evil and destroying life seems perfectly 
plain, and I feel quite satisfied that thousands of suffering 
animals have been hastened to their end by the means which 
were employed for the sole purpose of recovering them. 
The Duties of the Practitioner. 
To arrive at professional eminence, we must exercise 
diligence and close attention, as we pass through the various 
stages of life, and glean from each the fullest amount of 
knowledge it is capable of affording us. Speaking prac¬ 
tically, then, we will presume the practitioner has commenced 
with his patient, and is treating it, as indicated in the former 
part of these papers. At his second visit, he takes the pulse, 
and then referring to the pencil memorandum on the wall, 
made at his last visit, compares the number of beats, and 
finds they are eight, twelve, or twenty less, and the breathing 
is quieter. On his third visit, he finds the progress equally 
satisfactory; in such case, he may make a chalk across the 
case, and order that the animal may engage in the realities of 
daily life. 
But, by way of arguing both sides of the question, we will 
suppose (and such a state of things will happen) that the 
practitioner on his second visit finds no improvement in his 
patient. It is his special duty to examine each point himself; 
in the first place, to inquire whether his patient has had the 
full benefit of fresh, cold air, cold water, hay tea, or linseed tea; 
and his ears, and legs, and feet are warm. The practitioner is 
guilty of gross neglect, if he does not examine with his own 
hands, and make himself quite sure, upon all these points. Are 
his bowels acting, and how ? The attendant will very likely say, 
fi Oh, his dung is as nice as it can be and here let me 
