12 
J. 0. DALTON. 
Now you tell me to stop tlie opium and give a cathartic. Really, 
I don’t understand that, and I wish you’d explain.” 
“ Why,” said B., “ you remind me of my old horse. A while 
ago, in the month of April, I had been away some eight or ten 
miles to see a patient, and passing a brook on my return, thought 
I would give my horse a drink. It had been thawing and rain¬ 
ing then for a fortnight. The road was a bed of mud, and the 
track down to the brook a perfect slough of despond. How¬ 
ever, I picked my way down, leading the horse after me. But he 
was heavier than I, and sunk in the mud. Then he began to 
struggle and went deeper at every step; and at last he gave it up 
and sat down on his haunches, completely mired and half fright¬ 
ened to death. I had to wait till a man came along to help me, 
when we lifted the animal out with a couple of fence-rails and 
got him on his legs again, and I took him home. That was three 
years ago. Last December I had to visit the same patient again; 
and coming back by the brook, again thought I would water my 
horse. There was no snow in that part of the country, and it 
had been freezing hard for a fortnight. The road and the track 
down to the brook were like so much granite; and the brook had 
a narrow edging of solid ice, with a little stream in the middle, 
about six inches wide. As I was leading the way down, I felt 
the horse bear on the reins, and, looking back, I saw him planted 
there like a rock. He declined to come any farther, and all my 
pulling would not make him stir an inch. That puzzled me, 
until I recollected what had happened at the same place three 
years before. Then I made a speech to the animal, and express¬ 
ed my opinion of him in these words: ‘ Old horse,’ said I, 4 it 
strikes me that you have a first-rate memory, but an infernally 
poor judgment.’ ” 
I believe his friend did not ask him any more, why he treated 
those two cases of dysentery in a different way. 
Now, gentlemen, I will not keep you waiting any longer. I 
only have to offer you, in conclusion, my thanks for your atten¬ 
tion, and my good wishes for your future success. 
This address being received by warm applause, Prof. J. W. S. 
