Another common failing in veterinary practitioners is
Another common failing in veterinary practitioners is
Another common failing in veterinary practitioners is, a belief that the ergot of rye, or secale cornutum, acts upon the dog as a direct uterine excitant, and thus promotes the parturitive function. In this belief, however, they are not single. Many writers speak with confidence of its operation upon the animal. The accounts are positive; and I would not lightly place my unsupported testimony to the fact against a host of authors who can be suspected of no motive to misstate. The gentlemen alluded to are authorities of such weight that a strong conviction of the truth is required to make me advance, against such and so many witnesses, my single word. The reader must, however, take both for what they are worth; and remember the truth is not the less true because there may be but one humble individual ranged upon its side. It is not my intention to say the authors who speak decidedly concerning the action of the ergot on the bitch had no grounds for the statements they advance. I should not be justified in making so gross an assertion; on the contrary, I believe sincerely they saw all which they narrate; but, nevertheless, I am prepared to maintain that secale cornutum is not an excitant to the uterus of the dog in that sense which would warrant the veterinary practitioner in regarding it as a lawful agent. To be so esteemed by such persons, it should be both safe and certain in its operation. It should not only possess a chance of doing good in one direction, but it ought to be attended with no probability of doing harm in another way. It may, in the hands of others, have caused the uterus to contract, and thus have favored parturition, or have brought about abortion. I have seen it do neither, but I cannot say it has never thus acted; I am in no position to prove the negative. When I have given it to the animal, it has disordered the stomach and induced vomition. The dogs I tried its action upon might possibly have been bad subjects for experiment, but I am not aware that they presented any peculiarity. In every case that has passed under my observation, secale cornutum has been injurious; and I fear lest it may be so, when employed by others; I, therefore, discountenance its use, declaring the custom of exhibiting it with a view to quicken labor to be dangerous. I have used it as an emetic, though, rarely; as, for ordinary circumstances, there are preferable agents at command; but for some time I have abandoned its employment as a parturient for the bitch.