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.