Page:The Hog.djvu/105

Rh present advancing state of veterinary science, has conferred upon other domesticated animals. When any thing goes wrong in the piggery, the farmer too often, instead of exercising that shrewd sense which he turns to so good an account in almost every other instance, either sends for the butcher, or consigns the sick tenants of the sty to the care of an ignorant "pig-doctor," whose whole pretensions to leech-craft rest on the possession of some antiquated recipe, which he uses indiscriminately as a grand panacea for "all the ills swine's flesh is heir to," or on the traditionary lore he inherits from some ancestor famous in his day for certain real or supposed wondrous cures. The treatment adopted in such a case is usually of a very summary nature: a drench is administered, the principal ingredients of which consist in whatever abominations happen to come to hand first when this learned practitioner is summoned. The unlucky patient's tail is next cut off, or he is bled "between the claws," and the "doctor," after some learned clinical remarks to the bystanders, swallows the customary mug of beer, and leaves his patient to contend with his disease and the remedy, one or the other of which in most cases speedily brings the matter to a conclusion, unless, with all the obstinacy inherent in a pig's nature, he lives on in spite of both.




 * A. Maxilla interior, vel posterior—lower jaw.
 * B. Dentes—the teeth.
 * C. Ossa nasi—the nasal bones.
 * D. Maxilla superior, vel anterior—upper jaw.
 * E. Os frontis—the frontal bone.
 * F. Orbiculus—the orbit or socket of the eye.
 * G. Os occipitis—the occipital bone.