VETERINARY OBSTETRICS. 
519 
The case which Mr. Gamgee adduces to exalt himself at 
the expense of others, and to justify his former destructive 
treatment, condemns him to his face; for he stands convicted 
by his own account, which affords the strongest evidence, 
adduced by himself against himself, that the pithing of the 
mare was an unadvised and altogether indefensible act. Mr. 
Gamgee distinctly states, that he “ found the presentation 
(in the case he was sent to in Perthshire) precisely similar to 
the former one” I attended in Fifeshire. From his own 
account of the case, the mare had been in labour for nearly 
two days before he saw it. In the case published by me, 
Mr. Gamgee was in attendance in a very few hours after 
labour had commenced. For the extraction of the foal in the 
former case, he says, that “ the whole operation took nearly 
two hours.” In the latter he was engaged for five or six 
hours, using every violent means in vain, simply because he 
did not employ the right one, to accomplish delivery. On 
such an occasion, why did he not telegraph, as was suggested 
to him, for his instruments, which could have been forwarded 
to him in a couple of hours? or why did he not at once pro¬ 
ceed to Edinburgh, and fetch what he considered so neces¬ 
sary? For although he had not returned until the following 
day, he would have been sooner back, and in a far shorter 
space of time, to have rendered assistance, than in the case he 
was sent to attend in Perthshire; a case, be it remarked, 
which “ must prove fatal in consequence of the bungling of 
empirics ”! Be it remembered, that he had the whole manage¬ 
ment of the case recorded by me; and let me ask. Who was 
the bungler and destroyer of life on that occasion? No one 
but himself put violent hands upon the mare; for his state¬ 
ment, I affirm, is without foundation, that “ the vagina was 
irritated by the explorations already made, and the irritant 
discharges.” I appeal to the profession, if the sound practice 
was not either to disarticulate the head from the neck, as I had 
in a similar case done safely, and suggested to be adopted in 
this case, and to push back the presenting neck and body, 
and bring down the head ; or if necessary to give more space 
for doing so, to remove the fore leg and scapula from the 
shoulder ? But I need not now further go into this part of 
the subject, as I have in my former letter sufficiently adverted 
to his impracticable efforts. 
The attempt which Mr. Gamgee has resorted to for protection 
and defence, by the publication of the letters he has received 
from his correspondents, must appear at once to every mind, 
except to one like his own, “perplexed in the extreme/ 7 to be 
an utter failure; but what is more, it is an egregious blunder; 
