RECORDING CLINICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
85 
to make a diagnosis without a history of the patient, and how 
can this be accomplished with positiveness, is yet a problem to 
me. Truly, a practitioner may indeed, after years and years of 
close observation and labor, be able to express an opinion upon 
the nature of a case, and be correct in it, but still errors must 
often occur. 
I don’t ignore the fact that the alleged history is often an im¬ 
perfect one, and perhaps misleading, but with all that, I believe 
no one is justified in overlooking its value. The manner of ob¬ 
taining the history of a patient may be divided in two parts— 
first the interrogation of the owner and that of the patient him¬ 
self. Questioning the owner is almost an art, which though at 
first may seem simple and easy, yet requires tact and practice, 
and close attention to be of value. The questions must be made 
and repeated at variance, to obtain clues to the truth, since often, 
for reasons that cannot be discovered, the answers are deficient 
and erroneous, if not untruthful, and too often they are inten¬ 
tionally given in a way to mislead the deductions of the closely 
attentive inquirer. 
To illustrate the importance of this point, I can only men¬ 
tion the case of a horse being brought to my observation some 
twenty years ago, with the simple history that could be obtained, 
that the animal could not eat, and in which a simple diagnosis of 
simple sore throat was about to be made, when by chance a dog- 
passing within his reach, the horse sprang towards him with rage. 
Surprised by this action, I inquired of the owner if the horse had 
ever been bitten by a mad dog, and then he remembered 
that some time before a strange dog had entered his stall and bit¬ 
ten him, and that in being brought to me he had several times, 
when meeting dogs, attempted to rush at them and take hold of 
them. This part of the history was sufficient, and too character¬ 
istic to allow a doubt as to the nature of the disease. The poor 
horse succumbed a few days later to an attack of the most violent 
rabies I have ever seen. 
The interrogation of the patient is no less important, and is a 
task often difficult to perform. Unable to obtain from the sick 
animal by words the answers necessary, the veterinarian must 
