28 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



injured by evil practices to which he resorts for the purpose of 

 either living as much in a minute as possible or destroying con- 

 sciousness of an existence he cannot make sufficiently agreeable ; 

 while the practice of the city 'horse-doctor' is an improvement 

 upon this only in its being less nasty but more dangerous. 



On such as these we, who are absolutely free from any veterinary 

 acquirements, must entirely depend, while those who, from having 

 invested considerable capital in live stock, and from this fact are 

 forced to attempt some reading upon the subject, can get no other 

 aid in guiding their efllbrts. 



An impression seems to prevail, that but little study is necessary 

 to qualify a man to practice this art ; that only the exercise of a 

 little common sense, as it is often said, with an active observation, 

 is all that is required for successfully treating the diseases of cows, 

 horses, sheep, and swine. But the advantages of high attainments 

 in the man who practices the treatment of disease in your brother 

 man, are more generally recognized. Your committee cannot per- 

 mit this impressi<4n to go unchallenged. While they admit that 

 his bad habits, and willful persistence in his own way, may more 

 frequently complicate his disorder, and vitiate his blood, yet he has 

 the power of indicating the pai'ts affected and to convey a clear 

 idea of his disorder, upon which his physician may very readily 

 make a diagnosis of the case. But the veterinarian has no such 

 aid ; he is thrown at once upon his own knowledge of anatomy, 

 physiology, pathology and natural history ; his perceptive faculties 

 require to be far more acute and his judgment fully as sound ; for 

 him, too, man complicates the disorders of animals by the artificial 

 position in which he retains them. Wilson says, 'The veterinary 

 art, according to the present acceptation of the phrase, compre- 

 hends a knowledge of the external form, as well as the internal 

 structure and economy of our domestic quadrupeds, — their appro- 

 priate management, — the nature, causes, and treatment of their 

 disorders, — and the art of shoeing such of them as may be found 

 to require it.' 



Dr. Cuming, in the suggestive paper given us by Mr. Goodale 

 in the report of 1859, very pertinently says : ' Were it not a fact 

 patent to observation, it would hardly be credited, that an intelli- 

 gent and literary people like that of the United States, and loving 

 horses as they do, have yet the first step to take, for placing veteri- 

 nary surgery in the position of an art and science in their country. 

 But so it is, and veterinary literature, adapted to the wants and 



