306 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS, 
no higher motive moves mankind, will always cause them to 
minister to the wants and diseases of their animals, the 
treatment of which is not so very dissimilar to that resorted 
to for themselves; that is, if they are wise in seeking out a 
fit administrator. Here it is where the community too 
often fail. They can hardly be brought to believe that the 
same laws obtain among the lower animals as among them¬ 
selves ; that the same principles of therapeutics must be 
brought to bear on the one as on the other; or that science 
need ever be called into requisition in the treatment of their 
diseases. Those, however, who have made either division 
of medicine their study know to the contrary. Moreover, 
as science always is and ever will be progressive, for we 
shall never arrive at the ultimatum of knowledge, so it is 
that changes are constantly occurring; hence the theory of 
to-day may be the subject of ridicule to-morrow. In the 
practice of physic this is markedly seen, and this is the 
reason why so many subdivisions exist among us at the 
present day, each having its advocates, while it is to be 
feared that too many run to extremes in their views in all, 
forgetting that the medium is always the safer course to 
pursue: 
“Medo tutissimus ibis.” 
But it was just the same in days of old, as appears from 
the following article in the Revue des Deux Mondes. 
“ Antiquity has had its critics—either bitter and brutal, or satirical 
and polished. Heraclites hated physicians; he, was wont to say that 
they would be the most silly of men if grammarians were not there to 
dispute the position with them. But this morose philosopher had his 
own system of medicine, and a peculiar practice founded upon his theories 
of nature. He made such good use of it, indeed, that he at last died 
through it. Empedocles—jealous of the physician Acron, illustrious by 
his writings and experience—gave himself out as a messenger from 
heaven, charged with the mission of exterminating diseases and other 
destructive scourges; he journeyed from town to town, carried in a 
splendid chariot, clothed in magnificent garments, and received adorations 
and sacrifices like a god. We know how he died, victim of his vanity or 
scientific curiosity. Plato, again, did not spare the doctors ; he mocked 
with pleasure at their incapacity; but he, nevertheless, had a system of 
his own, which he had picked up from every quarter, as was his habit. 
From this we may conclude that from*the earliest days there has been a 
rivalry between doctors find philosophers, and that the last were jealous 
of the first. 
