When this warfare was first commenced, the prospect was poor indeed. The lancet was the great anti-phlogistic of the allopathic school; it had powerful, talented, and uncompromising advocates, who had been accustomed to resort to it on all occasions, from the early settlement of America up to that period. The great ma.s.s had followed in the footsteps of their predecessors, supposing them to be infallible. Men and animals were bled; rivers of blood have been drawn from their systems; yet they often got well, and men looked upon the lancet as one of the blessings of the age, when, in fact, it is the greatest curse that ever afflicted this country: it has produced greater losses to owners of domestic animals than did ever pestilence or disease. A few philanthropic pract.i.tioners have, from time to time, in other countries, as well as in this, labored during their life, and on their death-bed, to convince the world of the destructive tendency of blood-letting in human practice; but none that we know of ever had the moral courage to wage a general warfare against the practice in the veterinary department, until we commenced it. We have met with great success, and have given the blood-letting gentry who practise it at the present day ("just to please their employers or to make out a case") a partial quietus: in a few more years, unless they abandon their false theories, their occupation, notwithstanding their pretensions to cure _secundum artem_, will, like Oth.e.l.lo"s, be "gone." But we are not writing for doctors. Our business is with the farmers--the lords of creation. The former are mere lords of pukes and purges; they, like the farmers, have the materials, however, to mould themselves into men of common sense; but the fact is, they are hide-bound; they want a national sweat, to rid their systems, especially their upper works, of the theories of Sydenham and Paracelsus, which have shipwrecked many thousands of the medical profession. They shut their eyes to the results of medical reform, and cling, with all their soul, and with all their might, worthy a better cause, to a system that "always was false."
Lord Byron, like many other learned men, was well acquainted with the impotency of the healing art, and held the lancet in utter abhorrence: when beset, day and night, to be bled, the bard, in an angry tone, exclaimed, "You are, I see, a d----d set of butchers; take away as much blood as you like." "We seized the opportunity," says Dr. Milligan, "and drew twenty ounces; yet the relief did not correspond to the hopes we had formed." On the 17th, the bleeding was twice repeated, dangerous symptoms still increasing, and on the 19th he expired, just about bled to death. Washington, a man whose name is dear to every American, died from the effects of an evil system of medication. He was attacked with croup: his physician bled him, and gave him calomel and antimony. The next day, physicians were called in, (to share the responsibility of the butchery,) and he was subjected to two more copious bleedings: in all he lost ninety ounces of blood. Which of our readers, at the present day, would submit to such unwarrantable barbarity? We just said we were not writing for doctors; yet we find ourselves off the track in thus administering a small dose, as a sample of "_good and efficient treatment_."
In reference to the success attending our labors in veterinary reform, we do not claim the whole credit: much of it is due to the intelligence of the American farmers, in appreciating the value and importance of a safer and a more effectual system of medication; such a system as we advocate. They have witnessed the results attending the practice of cattle doctors generally, and they have seen the results of our sanative system of medication, and a great majority in Ma.s.sachusetts have decided in favor of the latter. We have demonstrated to the satisfaction of our patrons, and we are ready and willing to repeat our experiments on diseased animals for the satisfaction of others, in showing that we can restore an animal, when suffering under acute attacks of disease, in a few hours, when, by the popular method, it takes weeks and months, if indeed they ever recover from the effects of the destructive agents used.
We are told that "horses and cattle are bled and get well immediately."
This may apply to some cases; but, in very many instances, the animals are sent for a few weeks to "Dr. Green,"[1] to put them in the same condition they were at the time of bleeding. But suppose that some animals do get well after bleeding; is it thus proved that more would not get well if no blood were drawn from any? A cow may fall down, and, in so doing, lacerate her muscles, blood-vessels, &c., and lose a large quant.i.ty of blood. She may get well, in spite of the violence and loss of blood. So we say of blood-letting, if the abstraction of a certain number of gallons of blood will kill a strong animal, then the abstraction of a small quant.i.ty must injure it proportionately.
There is in the animal economy a power, called the vital principle, which always operates in favor of health. If the provocation be gentle, and does not seriously derange the machinery, then this power may overcome both it and any disease the animal may at the time labor under.
For example, a horse falls down in the street, perhaps laboring under a temporary congestion of the brain: now, if he were let alone until nature has restored an equilibrium of the circulating fluid and nervous action, he would soon get up and proceed on his way, as many thousands do when a knife or lancet is not to be had. But, unfortunately, people are too hasty. The moment a beast has fallen, they are bound to have him on his perpendiculars in double quick time. The teamster cannot wait for nature; she is "too slow a coach" for him. He tries what virtue there is in the whip; this failing, he obtains a knife, if one is to be had, and "_starts the blood_." By this time, nature, about resuming her empire, causes the horse to show signs of returning animation, and the credit is awarded to the blood-starter. Animals are often bled when diseased, and the prominent symptoms that previously marked the character of the malady disappear, or give place to symptoms of another order, less evident, and men have supposed that a cure is effected, when, in fact, they have just sown the seeds of a future disease. We are not bound to prove, in every case, how an animal gets well after two or three repeated bleedings. It is enough for us to prove that this operation always tends to death, which can easily be produced by opening the carotid artery of an animal.
Permit us, dear reader, at this stage of our article, to observe, that "confession is good for the soul." We mean to put it in practice. So here goes. We plead guilty to bleeding, blistering, calomelizing, narcotizing, antimonializing, a great number of patients of the human kind. We did it in our verdant days, because it was so scientific and popular, and because we had been taught to reverence the stereotyped practice of the allopathists. We have, however, done penance, and sought forgiveness; and through the aid of a few men, devoted to medical reform, we have been washed in the regenerating waters flowing through the vineyard of reason and experience, and now advocate and observe the self-regulating powers of the laws of life. On the other hand, we are free from the charge of bleeding or poisoning domestic animals, and can say, with a clear conscience, that we have never drawn a drop of blood from a four-footed creature, (except in surgical operations, when it could not be avoided;) neither will we, under any circ.u.mstances, resort to the lancet; for we are convinced that blood-letting is a powerful depressor of the vital powers.
Blood is the fuel that keeps the lamp of life burning; if the fuel be withdrawn, the light is extinguished.
Professor Lobstein says, "So far from blood-letting being beneficial, it is productive of the most serious consequences--a cruel practice, and a scourge to humanity. How many thousands are sent by it to an untimely grave! Without blood there is no heat, no motion in the body."
Dr. Reid says, "If the employment of the lancet was abolished altogether, it would perhaps save annually a greater number of lives than pestilence ever destroyed."
The fact of blood-letting having been practised by horse and cattle doctors from time immemorial is certainly not a clear proof of its utility, nor is it a sufficient recommendation that it may be practised with safety. During my professional career, the preconceived theories have commanded a due share of consideration; and, when weighed in the scale of uninfluenced experience, they never failed of falling short. If we grant that any deviation from the healthy state denotes debility of one or more functions, then whatever has a tendency to debilitate further cannot restore the animal to health. The following case will serve to ill.u.s.trate our position: "A horse was brought to be bled, merely because he had been accustomed to it at that season of the year.
I did not examine him minutely; but as the groom stated there was nothing amiss with him, I directed a moderate quant.i.ty of blood to be drawn. About five pints were taken off; and while the operator was pinning up the wound, the horse fell. He appeared to suffer much pain, and had considerable difficulty of breathing. In this state he remained twelve hours, and then died. Judging from the appearances at the post mortem examination, it is probable that a loss of a moderate quant.i.ty of blood caused a fatal interruption of the functions of the heart."
It is strange that such cases as these do not open men"s eyes, and compel them to acknowledge that there is something wrong in the medical world. Such cases as these furnish us with unanswerable arguments against blood-letting; for as the blood, which is the natural stimulus of, and gives strength to, the organs, is withdrawn, its abstraction leaves all those organs less capable of self-defence.
Horse and cattle doctors have recommended bleeding when animals have been fed too liberally, or if their systems abound in morbific matter.
Now, the most sensible course would be, provided the animal had been overfed, to reduce the quant.i.ty of food, or, in other words, remove the cause. If the secretions are vitiated, or in a morbid state, then regulate them by the means laid down in this work. For we cannot purify a well of water by abstracting a few buckets; neither can we purify the whole ma.s.s of blood by taking away a few quarts; for that which is left will still be impure. If the different parts had between them part.i.tions impervious to fluids, then there would be some sense in drawing out of the vessels over-filled; but unfortunately, if you draw from one, you draw from all the rest.
In every disease wherein bleeding has been used, complete recovery has been protracted, and the animal manifests the debility by swelled legs and other unmistakable evidences. In some cases, however, the ill effects of the loss of blood, unless excessive, are not always immediately perceived; yet such animals, in after years, are subject to staggers, and diseases of the lungs, pleura, and peritoneum.
Dr. Beach says, "The blood is properly called the _vital fluid_, and the life of a person is said to be in the blood.[2] We know that just in proportion to the loss of this substance are our vigor and strength taken from us. When taken from the system by accident or the lancet, it is succeeded by great prostration of strength, and a derangement of all the functions of the body. These effects are invariably, in a greater or less degree, consequent on bleeding. Is it not, then, reasonable to suppose, that what will debilitate the strongest const.i.tution in a state of health, will be attended with most serious evils when applied to a person laboring under any malady? Is it not like throwing spirits on a fire to extinguish it?
"Bleeding is resorted to in all inflammatory complaints; but did pract.i.tioners know the nature and design of inflammation, their treatment would be different. In fever it is produced by an increased action of the heart and arteries, to expel acrid and noxious humors, and should be promoted until the irritating matter is dislodged from the system. This should be effected, in general, by opening the outlets of the body, inducing perspiration; to produce which a preternatural degree of heat or inflammation must be excited by internal remedies. Fever is nothing more or less than a wholesome and salutary effort of nature to throw off some morbific matter; and, therefore, every means to lessen this indication proves injurious. Bleeding, in consequence of the debility it produces, prevents such indication from being fulfilled."
The inveterate phlebotomizers recommend and practise bleeding when "_the animal has too much blood_." There may be at times too much blood, and at others too little; but suppose there is--has any body found out any better method of reducing what they please to term an excess, than that of regular exercise in the open air, combined with a less quant.i.ty of fodder than usual? Or has any body found out any method of making good healthy blood, other than the slow process of nature, as exhibited in the results of digestion, secretion, circulation, and nutrition? Have they discovered any artificial means of restoring the blood to its healthful quant.i.ty when it is deficient? Have they found any means of purifying the blood, save the healthful operations of nature"s secreting and excreting laboratory? Finally, have they found any safety-valve or outlet for the reduction of this excess other than the excrement.i.tious vessels? And if they have, are they better able to adjust the pressure on that valve than He who made the whole machinery, and knows the relative strength of all its parts? In an article on blood-letting, found in the Farmer"s Cyclopaedia, the author says, "In summer, bleeding is often necessary to prevent fevers." Now, it is evident that nature"s preventives are air, exercise, food, water, and sleep. Attention to the rules laid down in this work, under the heads of _Watering_, _Feeding_, &c., will be more satisfactory and less dangerous than that recommended by the Cyclopaedia. If the directions given in the latter were fully carried out, the stock of our farms would be swept away as by the blast of a tornado. Such a barbarous system would entail universal misery and degeneracy on all cla.s.ses of live stock; and we might then exclaim, "They are living, yet half dead--victims to an inconsistent system of medication!" But thanks to a discerning public, they just begin to see the absurdity and wickedness of draining the system of the living principles. Veterinary reform has germinated in the New England States, and, in spite of all opposition, has struck its roots deep into the minds of a cla.s.s of men who have the means and power to send forth its healing branches, and apply them to their own interest and the welfare of their stock.
The same author continues: "Some farmers bleed horses three or four times a year." We hope the farmers have too much good sense to follow the wicked example of the former. Frequent bleeding is an indirect mode of butchery--killing by inches; for it gives to the blood-vessels the power to contract and adapt themselves to the measure of blood that remains. It impoverishes the blood, and leads to hydrothorax, (acc.u.mulation of water in the chest,) and materially shortens life.
Mackintosh says, "Some are bled who cannot bear it, and others who do not require it; and the result is death." The conservative power of life always operates in favor of health, and resists the encroachments upon her province with all her might, and often recovers the dominion; but by frequent bleedings, she is exhausted, and, on taking a little more blood than usual, the animal drops down and dies; and the owner attributes to disease what, in fact, is the result of bad treatment.
"Patients who recover after general and copious bleedings have been employed, may attribute their recovery to the strength of their const.i.tution.
"If you should ask a modern _Sangrado_ what was most necessary in the treatment of disease, doubtless he would reply, "Bleeding."
"Our modern pathologists, surgeons and others, think bleeding the _factotum_ in all maladies; it is the _ne plus ultra_, when drawn in large quant.i.ties. Blood-letting, say these authors, is not only the most powerful and important, but the most generally used, of all our remedies. Scarcely a case of acute, or, indeed, of chronic, disease occurs in which it does not become necessary to consider the propriety of having recourse to the lancet." (??) To what extent blood-letting is carried, in our modern age, may be learned by reading Youatt and others, who recommend it "when animals rub themselves, and the hair falls off; when the eyes appear dull and languid, red or inflamed; in all inflammatory complaints, as of the brain, lungs, kidneys, bowels, womb, bladder, and joints; in all bruises, hurts, wounds, and all other accidents; in cold, catarrh, paralysis, and locked-jaw." Yet, strange to say, one of these authors qualifies his recommendations as follows: "No man, however wise, can tell exactly how much blood ought to be taken in a given case." Now, it is well known that the draining of blood from a vein, though it diminishes the vital resistance, and lessens the volume of fluids, does not mend the matter; for it thus gives to cold and atmospheric agents the ascendant influence. A collapse takes place, the secretions become impaired, the animal refuses its food, "looks dumpish," &c.
We might continue this article to an indefinite length; but as we shall, in the following pages, have occasion to refer to the use of the lancet as a destructive agent, we conclude it with the following remarks of an English physician: "Our most valuable remedies against inflammation are but ill adapted for curing that state of disease. They do not act directly on the diseased part; the action is only indirect; therefore it is imperfect. Bleeding, the best of any of these remedies, is in this predicament."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] A piece of pasture land.
[2] Then the life of an animal is also in the blood; and the same evil consequences follow its abstraction.
EFFORTS OF NATURE TO REMOVE DISEASE.
"Nature is ever busy, by the silent operations of her own forces, in curing disease."--_Dixon._
Whenever any irritating substance comes in contact with sensitive surfaces, nature, or the _vis medicatrix naturae_, goes immediately to work to remove the offending cause: for example, should any substance lodge on the mucous surface, within the nostril, although it be imperceptible, as often happens when the hay is musty, it abounds in particles whose specific gravity enables them to float in atmospheric air; they are then inhaled in the act of respiration, and nature, in order to wash off the offending matter, sends a quant.i.ty of fluid to the part. The same process may be observed when a small piece of hay, or other foreign matter, shall have fallen into the eye: the tears then flow in great abundance, to prevent that delicate organ being injured.
"When a blister is applied to the surface, it first excites a genial warmth, with inflammation of the skin; and nature, distressed, goes instantly to work, separates the cuticle to form a bag, interposes serum between the nerves and the offensive matter, then prepares another cuticle, that, when the former, with the adhering substance, shall fall off, the nervous papillae may be again provided with a covering.
"The same reasoning will apply to the operation of emetics and cathartics; for not only is the peristaltic motion either greatly quickened or inverted, according to the urgency of the distress, but both the mucous glands and the exhalent arteries pour forth their fluids in abundance to wash away the offending matter, which at one time acts chemically, at others mechanically."
If a horse, or an ox, be wounded in the foot with a nail, and a portion of it is broken off and remains in the wound, inflammation sets in, producing suppuration, and the nail is discharged.
A few days ago, we were called to see a horse, said to have swelling on the _tarsus_, (hock.) On an examination, it proved to be an abscess, well developed; the matter could be distinctly felt at the most prominent part. We should certainly have been justified (at least in the eyes of the medical world; and then it would have looked so "doctor-like"!) in displaying a case of instruments and opening the tumor. If ulceration, gangrene, &c., set in and the horse ultimately became lame, no blame could be attached to us, because the practice is _scientific_!--recognized by the schools as good and efficient treatment. What was to be done? Why, it was evident that we could not do better than to aid nature. A relaxing, anti-spasmodic poultice was confined to the parts, and in six hours after, the sac discharged its contents, and with it a piece of splinter two inches in length. The pain immediately ceased, and the animal is now free from lameness. We here see the design of nature: the consequent inflammation was to produce suppuration, and make an outlet for the splinter.
Professor Kost says, "The laws of all organic life are remarkably peculiar; they possess, in an eminent degree, the power of self-regulation. When interrupted, disease, indeed, supervenes; but unless the circ.u.mstances are particularly unfavorable, the physiological state will soon be restored. All observation most clearly corroborates this fact. The healing of wounds, restoration of fractured bones, expulsion of obtruded substances, and particularly the manner in which extravasated matter or pus is removed from internal organs, as in case of abscess in the liver, in which exit may be gained by ulceration through the parietes, or by an adhesion to and ulceration into the intestines, or even by the adhesions to the diaphragm and lungs, in such a manner as, by ulceration into the bronchia, a pa.s.sage may be gained, and the pus thus removed by expectoration,--all evince a most singular conservative power. What is most remarkable in cases like the latter, is, that the adhesions are so formed as to prevent the escape of the pus into the peritoneal sac, which accident must inevitably prove fatal.
"Some very interesting experiments have been performed to test the restorative power of the different tissues of the animal body. If a portion of the intestines of a dog be taken out, and tied, so as to obstruct completely the pa.s.sage, it will be found that the adjacent portions of the intestine will reunite, the ligature will separate into the ca.n.a.l and be discharged, and the gut will heal up so as to preserve its normal continuity, and the animal, in a fortnight, will have recovered entirely from the effects of this fearful operation.
"When noxious or poisonous substances are thrown into any of the cavities of the body from which their escape is impracticable, a cyst will often form around them, and they thus become isolated from absorption and the circulation, so as to prevent their doing harm.
"The less remarkable instances of this character are of more common occurrence; and the self-regulating power of the laws of life, alias _vis conservatrix naturae_, is so universally known and depended on, that it is rare, indeed, that indisposed persons take medicine, until they have first waited at least a little, to see what nature would do for them; and they are seldom disappointed, as it may perhaps be safely a.s.serted, that nine tenths of all the attacks of disease (taking the slight indispositions; for such are most of them, as they are checked before they become severe) are warded off by the vital force, una.s.sisted. Such, then, are the facts deduced from observing the operations of nature in disease _una.s.sisted_."
Dr. Beach says, "We are well aware, from what pa.s.ses in the system daily, that the Author of nature has wisely provided a principle which is calculated to remove disease. It is very observable in fevers. No sooner is noxious or morbid matter retained in the system, than there is an increased action of the heart and arteries, to eliminate the existing cause from the skin; or it may pa.s.s off by other outlets established for that purpose. With what propriety, then, can this provision of nature be denied, as it is by some? A noted professor in Philadelphia or Baltimore ridicules this power in the const.i.tution; he says to his cla.s.s, "Kick nature out of doors." It was this man, or a brother professor, who exclaimed to his cla.s.s, "Give me mercury in one hand and the lancet in the other, and I am prepared to cope with disease in every shape and form." I have not time to stop here, and comment upon such palpable and dangerous doctrine. I have only to say, let the medical historian record this sentiment, maintained in the highest medical universities in America in the nineteenth century. I am pleased, however, to observe, that all physicians do not coincide with such views."
PROVERBS OF THE VETERINARY REFORMERS.
The merciful man is merciful to his domestic animals.
"Avoid blood-letting and poisons, for they are powerful depressors of the vital energies. There are two medical _fulcra_--reason and experience. Experience precedes, reason follows; hence, reasoning not founded on experience avails nothing. He who cures by simples need not seek for compounds."--_Villanov._
"The physician _dest.i.tute of a knowledge of plants_ can never properly judge of the power of a plant."--_Whitlaw._
"The vegetable kingdom is the most n.o.ble in medicines."--_Ibid._
"Innocent medicines, which approach as near to food as possible, preserve health, while chemical compounds destroy it. Heroic medicines (such are antimony, copper, corrosive sublimate, lead, opium, h.e.l.lebore, a.r.s.enic, belladonna) are like the sword in the hands of a madman.
"Nature una.s.sisted by art sometimes effects miracles."--_Whitlaw._
"It is the part of a wise physician to decline prescribing in a lost case."--_Ibid._ Whenever there is free, full circulation of blood, there is animal heat. If the heat of a part becomes deficient, the circulation is correspondingly diminished. As soon as voluntary motion in a part ceases, so soon the circulation becomes enfeebled; and if continued, the part will wither and waste away.