d pet could not sustain. The stomach of
the one being strong, would retain that which should induce violent spasm
in the morbidly sensitive organ of the other. Dogs, it is true, are but
dogs; yet, as a group, they present such varieties that there can be many
things asserted of them which shall be true or untrue as applied to
individuals.

Consequently, when I, writing of medicines as applied to certain
descriptions of dogs, assert a particular agent is not in its action such
as various writers have described, it is just possible I may not
contradict the declarations previously made.

We may probably be both speaking of our knowledge only of really different
things. Nominally the creatures we each observed were dogs; but though
they were the same in race, in capabilities and bulk, they were perfectly
distinct. The dog of the pharmacologist is a kind of beast I know nothing
of; I am ignorant--entirely and totally ignorant--of the creature that
Magendie and other respectabilities report of. As to the tales told by the
French physiologists, I confess an inability to credit one-third of them;
and from the list of those narrated by English physicians, I am obliged to
make a very wide selection. My unfortunate capacity for incredulity in
this matter has been educated by a professional acquaintance with the
animal; and gentlemen must pardon me if I am disposed to think, they who
are not ashamed to publish their wanton disregard for life would not be
very tender with respect to a mere report about the creature whose
suffering they despised. Where sympathy is dead, the conscience cannot be
very acute.

I have yet another custom here to deprecate; and I am sorry to add, it is
one which books and teachers equally countenance. I allude to the
employment of instruments in parturition, without any rule being pointed
out as to the time when such aids are necessary. Hundreds of bitches are
murdered by the misdirected efforts of Veterinarians; and of the
brutalities resorted to by other persons, I designedly take no notice.
Such fellows--mere pretenders--are below the contempt of every honest
mind; and my indignation passes over them to face the persons by whom
their interference is permitted. It is horrible to think of the amount of
torture which man's favorite animal is hourly subjected to, through the
culpability or weakness of those who should, in gratitude for the poor
beast's affections, be cautious to protect it.

Poetical as