688 
MEMOIRS OF A VETERINARY SURGEON. 
titioners, they allow them to fade away from their memory 
like the shadows of a dream. 
An additional reason for recording our thoughts is this: 
when we reflect upon the fact of how short is life, how few 
are the opportunities that exist for doing good, and that ere 
long we shall pass to that bourne from whence no traveller 
returns, is it not, I ask, some consolation to know we leave 
some traces behind of having at least shown a good intention, 
through having made an effort to add something to that 
store of knowledge which makes our fellow men happier by 
making them wise ? But even waiving this view of the ques¬ 
tion, I hold that the mere act of scrupulously and carefully 
recording a fact, is fruitful of thought; it trains the mind to 
arrange one’s ideas, and eventually creates an intellectual 
appetite for what is ennobling and elevated. Reading fur¬ 
nishes the mind only with materials of knowledge, it is 
thinking that makes what we read our own, and putting on 
record the result is our duty to fellow man. 
“Not to know of things remote, obscure, and subtle, 
But to know that, which before us lies in daily life, is the prime wisdom . 1 ” 
The object I have in view in writing this and the follow- 
ing paper is to record a series of impressions which have 
been made upon my mind by disease, and matured by re¬ 
peated opportunities during a period of twenty-five years and 
upwards, in this, one of the largest cities in the kingdom. 
It is not my intention to detail minutely the nature or theory 
of any particular disease, or discuss the treatment advocated 
by various authors, but simply to write in the character of a 
plain, plodding practitioner, the height of whose ambition is 
to lay down true and correct principles in endeavouring to 
understand nature aright, so that I may help her in cases of 
need and see at a glance what it is she requires, and thereby 
repress or adjust that which is thwarting her in her delicate 
and nicely arranged functions, which when in health consti¬ 
tute perfect order— 
“ first follow nature, and your judgment frame 
By her just standard, which is still the same.” 
The class of diseases I purpose to discuss in these papers 
1 shall call acute fever,” or a state of general disturbance 
and excitement of the respiratory and circulatory systems. 
Under the above head may be included some of the cases 
frequently called influenza, congestion of the lungs, bronchitis, 
pleuritis, pneumonia, &c. 
The natural bias of my mind respecting disease I find, 
instinctively as it were, to be ever approximating to sim- 
