VALUE OF VETERINARY SCIENCE. 201 



in case of a horse having colic or lung fever, or a cow having 

 garget or getting choked, and that his usefulness ends there. 

 This opinion is correct as far as it goes ; but such an estima- 

 tion of the value of an educated veterinary surgeon would 

 be very limited if it did not comprehend more. Besides 

 being useful as a general practitioner, his opinion should be 

 sought, and his advice followed, in outbreaks of contagious 

 disease among animals, and in matters relating to the pub- 

 lic health, as far as it is influenced by the diseases of animals. 

 Admitting, then, that the educated veterinarian is a useful 

 member of the community in the generally accepted sense 

 of horse and cattle doctor, let us look at him from the 

 broader point of view, and see what he has done at home 

 and abroad to protect the farmer from animal plagues, and 

 of what benefit he may be to them in the future. 



Let us, also, look at the veterinarian as a sanitarian in 

 protecting the public health by his knowledge of diseases 

 common to animals and man, the inspection of slaughter- 

 houses, dairy cattle, etc. 



Disease among animals has been known since the earliest 

 antiquity. We read of it as one of the Plagues of Egypt, 

 attacking various creatures, and, in this case, it was very 

 likely some form of anthrax. Glanders was mentioned in 

 the fourth century, and probably existed prior to that time. 



The earliest writers upon medicine devoted some of their 

 energy to describing diseases of animals, among them being 

 Aristotle, Hippocrates, Celsus (the Father of Medicine), 

 and many others of the ancient Greek and Roman period. 



While the diseases, especially the contagious diseases 

 of animals, have been recognized as of the utmost impor- 

 tance from a very early period, yet there was no effort to 

 give men systematic education as veterinarians until the 

 last century. Previous to that time veterinary education 

 was acquired by those who had a taste for it, by reading 

 the works of others on the subject, and by observation. 

 Of course, the earliest observers had no books to consult, 

 but they recorded what they saw, and their successors had 

 the benefit of these works, and added to them the results 

 of their own experience, and thus veterinary knowledge accu- 

 mulates century after century, until the establishment of the 



