THE VETERINARIAN AND THE HUMANITARIAN. 
603 
but, through gross ignorance of the conditions involved. As an 
illustration of this, I might quote the saying, “ Killed through 
kindness,” and it is true that animals are often subjected to ex¬ 
cruciating pain from what might be called “ mistaken kindness.” 
For instance, it is a common experience for the veterinarian to be 
called to relieve the sufferings of some poor animal, the victim 
of over-feeding and its sequelae—indigestion, irritation, and in¬ 
flammation of a portion of the alimentary canal. These pain- 
producing conditions are frequently brought about through mis¬ 
taken kindness, the result of a want of knowledge regarding the 
laws of nutrition. It must be borne in mind that there is a 
limit to the digestive and assimilative powers ; and if we, 
through ignorance or indifference, indulge in excess with food, 
animals, which have not the intelligence nor the power to say, 
“ hold, enough,” to the point of overtaxing the organs of digestion 
and producing the agonizing paroxysms we are often compelled 
to witness, we are, I think, to some extent at least, guilty of 
cruelty, because such a condition of affairs could be prevented. 
Another form of cruelty seen daily on our city streets and 
thoroughfares, and which we cannot but believe is largely the 
result of ignorance, is the using of lame horses. Tameness 
may be defined to be the expression of pain in the act of pro¬ 
gression ; and as we cannot possibly impeach that noble animal 
with being guilty of deception, especially to the point of exhib¬ 
iting signs of pain when not actually in existence, whenever 
any irregularity of gait is shown, it indicates suffering—of 
course I allude here to animals that are free from structural de¬ 
formities—yet ^we find many people in the enjoyment, seem- 
ingly, of unbounded happiness, pleasure-riding behind a poor 
animal suffering, it may be, very acutely. 
Cruelty in another form may be witnessed in many rural 
sections of the country during the winter season of the year, but 
which, I opine, escapes the observation, in some measure at 
least, of the ordinary lay individual. I refer to cruelty from 
neglect. I have been in the position to see and read reports 
from correspondents of state departments of agriculture as to 
