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THE VETERINARIAN, DECEMBER 1, 1861. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. — Cicero. 
A PLEA FOR HUMORAL PATHOLOGY. 
It has often been remarked that the tendency of medical 
science in the present age is to revert to the doctrine of 
humoral pathology. If this be so, it will nevertheless be 
admitted that she is not groping her way along a dark and 
obscure path, but journeying onwards in one which is 
illumined by the light of anatomy, physiology, and histology, 
and that, being now unincumbered by the philosophy of 
classic Greece, her progress is safe and her destination 
secure. It must not be thought, however, that we opine 
that the science of disease will ever again come under the 
entire dominion of the humoral pathologist, but only that 
the investigator of our day will give more heed than hitherto 
to the direct influence of the fluids in the production of 
affections of the solids. 
Accustomed as we daily are to investigate the causes of 
ill health among animals, we have long been satisfied that 
many of their maladies have their origin in a morbid con¬ 
dition of the blood. What, it may be asked, are epizootic 
and enzootic diseases—pass current by whatever names they 
may—but so many instances of contaminated blood ah initio ? 
How numerous are the sporadic affections which we recog¬ 
nise as being due to miasmatic and other morbific matters 
entering the organism in the respiratory process, and 
exerting their deleterious effects immediately on the elements 
or proximate principles of the vital fluid. 
Nor is it in this way alone that the blood becomes dete¬ 
riorated. Look at the direct influence of the food and w^ater 
w r hich are partaken of by herbivorous animals in particular. 
Look, again, at the effects of a long-continued elevation or 
even diminution of temperature, a humid or dry atmosphere, 
on the quality as well as the quantity of their food and the 
function of their respiration. See also their constantly 
exposed bodies to every vicissitude of weather, and we shall 
