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in Tolouse was a government establishment where several
fine horses were kept for the general improvement of the
breed in the country around. I saw there a beautiful Arab
and also a Percheron horse. There was an infirmary or hos-
pital attached for the treatment of sick horses in charge of a professio-
nal veterinary surgeon, after the manner of a similar establishment
at Alfort near Paris, which doubtless was productive of much
good to the neighborhood by the correct treatment of sick animals.
It was near this city that the last battle was fought
between Wellington and Soult in April 1814. It occurred after
the abdication of Napoleon at Fontainebleau, which fact gave
rize to some comment, as it was suspected that Soult knew
of the abdication before the battle. If this was true his conduct
was criminal in uselessly sacrificing the lives of those who were
slain on both sides.
My seat in the diligence upon leaving Toulouse for Bordeaux
was in the central compartment where we were six men. Shortly after
starting one of the six, a middle aged man, who had been talking
to his neighbor in a rather desultory way, proposed that the con-
versation should become general, and, in order to make it so, inquir-
ed of everyone where he hailed from. The proposition was favorably
received and each of us readily announced his nationality. The re-
sult being that we were three Frenchmen, one Belgian, one American
and one government official lately arrived from Pondicherry, a
French possession in India. The spokesman then informed the com-
pany that he was a homeopathic doctor, and that, with their per-
mission, he would explain what in his opinion was the manner
in which the infinitesimal doses operated on the system. He spoke
at some length and with great fluency, showing that he was ac-
customed to lecture before classes, and he took the opportunity
of saying that the time had come for homeopathy to be considered
as a perfectly honest and scientific procedure, which had a right
to demand from the government the same recognition which was
allowed to allopathy.
The substance of his remarks about the manner in which the minute
doses of medicine acted upon the system was that, after being
taken internally and admitted into the circulation, they were there
in such a diluted form that they could only produce an impression
upon the extreme ramifications of the nerves surrounding the ca-
pillary system of blood vessels. Such in his opinion was the
modus operandi or mode of action of a homeopathic dose,
namely, an effect altogether on the surface of the body, and
remedial for that reason alone.
I was the only one of the company who could follow out his reason-
ing, and, as it was the first time that I had heard an able
defense and exposition of homeopathy, I listened attentively, the
speaker being very easy in his manner and very persuasive
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