ON DIETETICS. 
4 37 
ence to each case, would generally find an answer, and prevent 
a host of errors in the treatment of animals suffering under 
disease; applying this principle, we come at once to the 
question. What is the object of diet in acute affections? 
In very few, perhaps in no instances, can it be said that 
food is at all indispensable to support the system; under the 
immediate disturbance of an active disease, aliment of any 
kind will stimulate, and consequently, unless absolutely 
necessary, had better not be administered at all; we can 
hardly understand that harm can result from a day’s cr 
night’s abstinence, while we have often had reason to regret 
the consumption of too much when the digestive organs were 
unable to perform their office. We have probably no more 
safe nor direct sedative effect resulting from any system of 
treatment, than from total abstinence for a time; no more 
direct source of irritation than the introduction of a quantity 
of material into the stomach which is incapable of appro¬ 
priating it. The anxious inquiry, “ What will he eat ?” 
applied to man or beast, is expressive of solicitude, which, 
however genuine, is unfortunate for the patient, as it com¬ 
monly leads to the selection of tempting food, to excite an 
appetite which naturally would not return until the organism 
was again sufficiently reinstated to permit its indulgence with 
advantage. It may be accepted as an absolute fact, that 
under every form of acute disease, no benefit can possibly 
result from allowing the patient to eat at the commencement, 
even should a desire to do so be manifested ; there is no 
immediate want of sustenance, and no debilitv will result 
from a temporary abstinence, although even were these 
consequences imminent, food would not furnish the means of 
prevention, as the impaired digestive action reduces it to the 
level of mere waste material, unproductive of any benefit to 
the system. 
Our anxiety always is to remove every particle of food 
from the animal’s sight for the first twelve hours of an acute 
disease, allowing only water, rendered medicinal by the 
admixture of some saline, such as nitrate of potash or the 
sulphate of magnesia or soda ; by this plan we prevent an 
irritating thirst, and at the same time the too large con¬ 
sumption of fluid, thus made distasteful; while the quantity 
which the animal’s feelings prompt him to swallow will act 
beneficially upon the secretions. 
At the end of ten or twelve hours, a little hay, or 
green food, or carrots, or mash, may be offered, as the ex¬ 
citement of unappeased hunger would be injurious; but if 
the patient still manifest an indifference, the material should 
