EXPERIENCES OP A COUNTRY VETERINARIAN. 525 
much swollen and painful. He has been fed on light food 
since the accident, and I ordered him to have aloes, gent, 
pulv. aa 3iiiss, this evening. 
This ball did not take any effect on him. The next day it 
was wet, and he could not be walked out. 
The resume of the foregoing trials stands, therefore, as 
follows:—Out of 12 horses submitted to the operation of 
catharsis , in 7 the medicine has produced the intended effect, 
in 5 it has not. 
THE OPINIONS AND EXPERIENCES OF A COUNTRY 
VETERINARIAN. 
To the Editor of <( The Veterinarian” 
Sir, —Until within the last eighteen months my pro¬ 
fessional experience was almost entirely confined to a district 
purely agricultural; and it has often occurred to me, in the 
toil and routine of country practice, that the opinions and 
experiences of some one like myself, fairly and honestly 
narrated, would not be wanting either in profit or amusement 
to such as happen to be interested in weterinary pursuits. 
There is a wide difference between town practice and country 
practice, properly so called. Each may possess some ad¬ 
vantages over the other, and both, no doubt, have their 
peculiarities; but I have long been of opinion that the mere 
country practitioner, enjoying, as he does, a much wider 
field of observation, and shut out, as he is, by his geographi¬ 
cal position, from all communication with his professional 
brethren, seldom seeking aid by reference to books, and left 
therefore to battle, alone and unassisted, with the most difficult 
and intricate cases,—if he has a harder lot than his brother 
practitioner of the town—has certainly the most perfect 
opportunities for arriving at correct conclusions. His ex¬ 
perience will teach him not only the exact value of all that 
has been written by others, but likewise the necessity of a 
full reliance on his own knowledge and resources. 
Of our modern writers on Veterinary Medicine, not one 
can be said to belong properly to the ranks of the class to 
which I refer. This, I think, is to be regretted. There is, 
for example, only one book in our language, of any standing, 
on the diseases of cattle; and this—although a worthy 
monument of the industry and literary abilities of its author 
—is still no more than a well-written compilation—a mere 
collection of the observations of others, abounding with 
fallacies of opinion and errors of description. It is no irre- 
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