418 THE MEANS OF PREVENTION. 



It will be remembered that the Berlin school has the largest 

 clinic of any school in the world, yet we never saw " hundreds of 

 animals " at any one day in the school hospital or free clinics ; al- 

 though the number upon the grounds on a given day might, inclu- 

 sive of dogs, be about two hundred and fifty. Yet a small Western 

 town (Ames, Iowa) is to furnish " hundreds " of patients for clinical 

 exercises which take place " one half day each week? Among other 

 wonderful accessories of this school is a pair of " scales, capable of 

 weighing one twenty -thousandth of a gramme'''' — a thing beyond the 

 present range of human ability. The faculty of this Iowa veteri- 

 nary abortion consists of seven persons, only two of whom seem to 

 know anything of medicine, and one only of veterinary medicine. 

 This latter prodigy is the graduate of a Canadian school, and I make 

 bold to say that the president of it would not dare affirm that he 

 gives an education suitable to prepare men for teachers. This man, 

 whom the editor of the " National Live-Stock Journal " describes 

 as " a young man with comparatively little experience as a veteri- 

 nary surgeon," is supposed to head this institution, so far as the vet- 

 erinary profession finds any representation. He is to teach the 

 whole of veterinary medicine, which includes the following techni- 

 cal branches : General pathology, general surgery, special pathology 

 and therapeutics of all the diseases of domestic animals ; pathologi- 

 cal anatomy, special surgery, operative surger} 7 and practice ; the 

 pathology of the contagious animal diseases and their prevention 

 (veterinary hygiene and police), forensic medicine (veterinary), ob- 

 stetrics, horseshoeing, veterinary history, and meat and market in- 

 spection — and conduct the clinics, and, according to the curriculum, 

 also attend to a " large practice, which the students will have the 

 privilege of assisting in." I have heard of such a thing as a " ser- 

 vant of all work" ; the great Boerhaave was the man j)ar excellence 

 in this regard so far as medicine is concerned, but we think even 

 his spirit must be tortured with envy at the supposed ability of this 

 young man " of comparatively little practical experience." The work 

 this prodigy is expected to do can not be well done by less than eight 

 specialists, and they supported by eight more specialists in the dif- 

 ferent natural sciences which are necessary to the comprehension of 

 the purely professional branches. If this school is not even a 

 "humbug" before its opening, then I fail to know the meaning of 

 the word. I must say that the adjoining States have no other 

 course than to order a severe quarantine against the graduates of this 

 school. The old-school empirics, the empirics of years, of which 

 we have so many, will be found far more worthy of confidence than 



