J HE IMPROVED ART OF FARRIERY. 327 



the college attending a necessary, but severe operation, 

 jostling and wrestling with his fellows for the best 

 view ; execrating the struggles of the agonized animal 

 and mocking its groans ; not one expression of com- 

 miseration heard from a considerable proportion 

 of the spectators ; not one calculation how far a part 

 at least of the torture may be saved, consistently with 

 the object of the operation. The load laugh and the 

 ribald joke drowning the voice of the operator — or the 

 operator himself, when not too much annoyed by the 

 shameless indecency of the scene, pausing in the midst 

 of his work, and joining in the laugh. We have some- 

 times thought that if a stranger were present at this 

 unnatural exhibition, he would imagine that we were 

 training for purposes of brutality, and not of humanity, 

 and be very cautious how he entrusted a valuable and 

 generous animal to our tender mercies ; and sure we 

 are, that scenes hke these are more calculated to train 

 us to become butchers than surgeons ; and hence in a 

 great measure it is that so many of our operations 

 are performed in a butcher-like and unprofessional 

 manner. We are aware that one of the most im- 

 portant requisites in a surgeon is perfect self-possession ; 

 and that the feelings of the patient should for a mo- 

 ment merge in the important object of the operation : 

 but this is different from those exhibitions in which 

 there is no previous comparison of suffering and ad- 

 vantage, and no subsequent commiseration. It can- 

 not be denied, that circumstances do sometimes attend 

 the operations of veterinary surgery, which would 

 meet with universal execration in the theatre of the 

 human surgeon : the inevitable consequence of this on 

 the mind of the young practitioner has not been suffi- 

 ciently calculated ; or rather the error has been that 

 we have not felt ourselves bound to regard the 



