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 _destitute of a knowledge of plants_ can never properly
judge of the power of a plant."--_Whitlaw._
"The vegetable kingdom is the most noble 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, hellebore,
arsenic, belladonna) are like the sword in the hands of a madman.
"Nature unassisted 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.
The strength and health of an animal depend on a due share of exercise,
pure air, and suitable food. Deprive an animal of these, and he will
cease to exist. We believe in the great doctrine that the duty of the
physician is to aid nature in protecting herself in the enjoyment of
health, by proper attention to breeding, rearing, ventilation, and
proper farm and stable management.
"The tinsel glitter of fine-spun theory, or favorite hypothesis, which
prevails wherever allopathy hath been taught, so dazzles, flatters, and
charms human vanity and folly, that, so far from contributing to the
certain and speedy cure of diseases, it hath, in every age, proved the
bane and disgrace of healing art."--_Graham_, p. 15.
"Those physicians generally become the most distinguished who soonest
emancipate themselves from the tyranny of the schools of
physic."--RUSH.
"Availing ourselves of the privileges we possess, and animated by the
noblest impulses, let us cordially cooeperate to give to medicine a new
direction, and attempt those great improvements which it imperiously
demands."--_Ther._, vol. i. p. 51.
"It has been proved by allopathists themselves, that 'a physician should
be nature's servant;' that 'bleeding tends directly to subdue nature's
efforts;' that 'all poisons suddenly and rapidly destroy a great
proportion of the vitality of the system;' that whatever be the
quantity, use, or manner of application, all the influence they
inherently possess is injurious, and that they are not fatal in every
instance of their use only because nature overpowers them."--_Curtis._