Genre:

Letter, Spoof

Subjects:

Animal Husbandry, Disease, Homeopathy, Amateurism, Medical Treatment

    Written from the perspective of a rustic, this letter begins by noting the attempt to try 'Hummyopathy for the Cattle Plag up there in Norfolk', a trial in which John W S Churchill (6th Duke of Malborough) and James Caird participated. The author is not surprised at the reported failure of the trial, but praises the attempt to test 'things like them there on dumb annimles', despite the fact that 'magination wun't cure a old cow'. Points out that the experimenters have confirmed what he already knew: that cattle are cured by diet. Noting the homeopathic principle that like cures like, speculates that if the solution to cattle plague is 'about a millionth of a grain of assnick', then humans poisoned with arsenic should be given 'a mitesimal dose o' blue vitterul'. Believes that 'mitesimal causes produce mitesimal effects' and thinks homeopathy has had a 'mitesimal' effect on the cattle plague.