VETERINARY COLLEGE. 259 



such as to afford the students an opportunity of seeing a consid 

 erable variety of practice, especially among horses, to which 

 hitherto the practice has been mainly confined. Besides this, 

 through the liberality of the professors of the Medical College, 

 the students at the Veterinary Institution have an opportunity 

 of attending the medical and anatomical lectures gratuitously 

 at these institutions ; and, to guard, as far as possible, against 

 ignorance and incompetency, no student can receive the diploma 

 or recommendation of the institution to practise, until he has 

 passed a regular and thorough examination, and has been found 

 qualified for the duty. 



This is a most excellent institution. In an economical view, 

 it is highly important ; for the amount of property in live stock 

 is every where very great and here, where, as in several estab 

 lishments kept by a single individual, there are twenty and 

 thirty, and sometimes forty horses for hunting, and in other 

 cases as many more for racing, and where, as in several cases 

 within my knowledge, packs of dogs, of very great original cost, 

 are kept at an expense of from fifteen hundred to two thousand 

 pounds, or from seven thousand to ten thousand dollars, a year, 

 and in many cases more than that, it is easy to see what a 

 large amount of property is at stake, and to what care it is 

 entitled. I have been at one or two establishments where the 

 horses in the stables, exclusive of horses for farm work, amount 

 ed to sixty or eighty. The large number of cavalry horses 

 belonging to the army render the services of a veterinary sur 

 geon, in such establishments, of indispensable importance. 



Surgery, as an art, has been carried to great perfection and in 

 some circumstances hardly any thing more seems wanting than 

 actually to breathe into some of the artificial anatomical prepara 

 tions the Promethean fire, and set the circulations in motion. 

 Medicine, indeed, presents but few infallible remedies, but some 

 thing has been done ; and if comparatively little has been accom 

 plished by physic, yet much has been done by a curative treat 

 ment and regimen. I am aware that it is quite customary to 

 say of many novel, and certainly very gentle modes of treatment, 

 of recent date, that the patients are cured by the imagination : 

 and this is as agreeable a mode of cure as bloodletting, or 

 powerful doses of calomel and jalap, or the exciting operation of 

 Spanish flies. It is obvious, however, that, until we make 



