INFECTION. 75 



Has veterinary medicine ever produced a Bichat or a Yirchow ? 

 When it does, it will stand scientifically on a level with human medi- 

 cine, and not till then ; for then it will for a time give the direction 

 to all medical research and thought. Good theorists are ever prac- 

 tical in the best sense of the word ; for practical does not always 

 mean a knowledge of therapeutics alone, as many teach. An erro- 

 neous theory, ably defended, is of more benefit to the world than 

 a true one which lacks earnest defenders or combat ers. It stirs men 

 up, and leads to the discovery of the truth. 



Darwinism has been the greatest blessing to natural science that 

 the nineteenth century has produced, even though all its premises 

 should finally be proved incorrect. You have only to think of the 

 immense increase of our knowledge of the lower forms of life, of 

 the physiological functions of both lower and higher animals, to re- 

 alize this. 



Some of our very best veterinarians are getting by far too con- 

 ceited, and this conceit is unfortunately becoming inoculated into 

 the rising generation. 



There is no such thing; in existence as veterinary science. 



We speak of veterinary pathologists, when in reality we have 

 never had a single one. Pathologists and pathological anatomists 

 are entirely different things, though occasionally united in one 

 person. 



Bichat and Yirchow were pathologists, because they were good 

 thinkers. Pathology is the philosophy of disease. They were or 

 are pathological anatomists, because they could correctly read, that 

 is, describe the results of disease. From these results they theo- 

 rized ; that is, from facts they thought ; that is, they tried to tell us 

 how the results took place, for no man has yet seen the processes of 

 disease. 



What we see upon the dissection-table, or under the microscope, 

 is not the processes of disease, but the results. 



If we are practical in the world's sense, these results will be of 

 no value to us ; if we are theorists, they may be very instructive, 

 and we can become truly practical. 



I have said that Yirchow and Bichat were pathologists, and that 

 veterinary medicine had never produced a pathologist. 



This is a fact, contradict it who may. But if we have not pro- 

 duced pathologists, we have pathological anatomists, some say. 



Again I say, all wrong. A pathological anatomist is a man who 

 correctly describes the results of disease, of which Kokitansky is a 

 striking example. 



