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from the very inception of the disease ; yet had we lived at that time, or had science 
failed to make any advancement, we undoubtedly would do just as they did, while it is 
more than possible that future generations will look with the same compassion upon our 
very deficient knowledge of the action of medicine, as we entertain for those who have 
gone before us. 
Many of the old landmarks in the treatment of disease, are, if not rapidly, surely 
passing away. Among those now numbered with the things of the past preeminently 
stands bleeding. Many of the members present no doubt well remember when they 
bled the patient that was plethoric, and the one that was anaemic ; whether there was 
a full hard pulse, or a soft and weak one, whether he had a disease which would render 
him unable to stand from debility, or whether it was a disease that would never cause 
death, it mattered not—the indications as then considered were for bleeding and 
* the operation was accordingly performed. That such indiscriminate use of the lance 
must necessarily do very much harm, and as a common remedial agent lose its wonted 
popularity, is fully attested by the prejudice existing in the mind of the public against 
the use of this once much abused remedy, I think each yeai finds us giving to stimu¬ 
lants a higher and still higher position upon the roll of medicine used in veterinary practice. 
In those diseases for which we have no specific, and that cannot be cut shoit by remedy, 
but must run a regular course; those diseases which tend to destroy life by wearing out 
the strength of the patient before nature has carried him beyond the point of danger, 
stimulants are now come to be used and recognized as of the utmost importance in 
assisting nature to support the failing strength until the ciitical peiiod is safely passed. 
More attention too, is nowadays paid to the clinical history of a disease as an indi¬ 
cation for treatment than in days gone by. If as in Epizootic Influenza, we know that 
the first symptoms of a violent inflammation are to be followed in a few hours by the 
greatest debility, we are warned not to reduce the patient’s strength by depletive meas¬ 
ures, but to guard against the consequent loss of strength by agents which seem to be 
contra-indicated at this period of the disease—agents which will place the patient in 
the very best possible condition to withstand the depressing influence of the poison 
already in the system and about to show itself by the great reduction of vital force 
through its action upon the nervous system. 
A great mistake in the past has been that the resort to the use of stimulants was 
deferred until nature was so completely exhausted as to be beyond the reach of their 
influence, instead of anticipating as we now do the ravages which the disease would 
otherwise make, and by an early administration of stimulants prevent that condition of 
the system so dangerous to the ultimate recovery of the patient, thereby cailying 
through to a happy convalescence very many cases, which under the old method of 
sedative treatment would succumb to the influence exerted by the disease. 
I notice by a reference to English authorities that our trans-Atlantic cousins do 
not believe in the use of stimulants to the same extent as we Americans do. At the 
same time I have observed that country practitioners here do not so strongly advocate 
the use of these medicines as do those who practice in cities. 
It is no doubt true that pampered city horses do not bear disease so well as those 
subjected to rugged country life and fare. Although the percentage of the different 
diseases to which the equine species are subject varies between the city and countiy, 
still I believe stimulants could be used by the country-practitioners with results more 
satisfactory than those now obtained from the use of sedatives in seveial of the diseases 
which they are called upon to treat. 
