"Scribo nec ficta, nee picta, sed quæ ratio,
sensus et experientia docent."
TO
MISS BURDETT COUTTS.
Madam,
The numerous services which you have rendered, and the interest you haveshown in the calamitous epizootic which at this moment decimates thenoble herds of England, have prompted me to dedicate the following pagesto you, satisfied that I am only giving public expression to the homagefelt for you by many of your fellow-countrymen.
I have the honour to be, Madam,
With respect, your obedient servant,
H. BOURGUIGNON.
Nations, during the successive phases of their evolution on the globe,in which they advance from a state of infancy and barbarism to one ofvirility and civilization, from civilization to decadence or senility;and from decadence to their final extinction, are liable to numberlesscalamities.
These calamities are produced by moral causes, and are then calledsocial Revolutions; and in other instances from physical causes, andthen they are termed Cataclysms, Epidemics, or Epizootics.
In these crises, the initiative and devotion of individuals, the publicadministration, and the application of knowledge acquired in the Artsand Sciences, afford collectively an infallible criterion for[Pg viii]ascertaining the position which a nation occupies in the scale ofcivilization, and the value of its religious, social, and politicalinstitutions.
Calamities always leave behind them disasters and victims, but theybequeath also a precious legacy. Nations which are called upon for freshand progressive efforts, find in the experience they have gained a newsource of strength and means of future greatness. I am convinced thatthis will be the case with England; though, helpless for the moment, andunable to stay the Cattle Plague which now ravages her entire extent,she will in future be found better prepared to resist the inroads ofsuch a direful enemy.
No branch of human knowledge has been more rudely tested during thepresent epizootic than medical science. Many persons have been astoundedat its helplessness; but if they had reflected at what a distancemedicine has to follow in the wake of the exact sciences by which it isfurnished with instruments for [Pg ix]prosecuting its researches,—thatorganic chemistry progresses but slowly,—that the Cattle Plague wasentirely unknown to the present generation of medical men inEngland,—and that the means for its scientific and practical study havebeen therefore wholly wanting, they would have been less surprised tofind that it is as difficult to cure the Cattle Plague as it, is to curephthisis,