REMARKS ON BLOOD-LETTING.
The author has been, for several years, engaged in a warfare against the use of the lancet in the treatment of the various diseases of animals. 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 mass 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 practitioners 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 Othello'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 Massachusetts 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 quantity 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 quantity 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 circumstances, 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."