226 



Veterinary Institute. 



Vol. X. 



Coiiiinunicated for the Fanners' Cabinet. 



Veterinary Institute. 



To the Mcmhers of the Philadeljihia Society for 

 Promoting Agriculture ; 



Gentlemen, — I beg leave to inform you 

 that I have established an Institute at the 

 corner of Ridge Road, near Vine street, 

 where I intend to deliver a course of Lec- 

 tures on the Anatomy, Physiolosry, and Pa- 

 thology of domestic animals, principally de- 

 duced from the lectures of Messrs. Coleman, 

 Sewel, and Morton, Professors of the Vete- 

 rinary College, London; Mr. Dick, of Edin- 

 burgh ; Messrs. Youatt and Percival, of the 

 University of London, and many others of 

 the acknowledged heads of the profession; 

 and I trust by the additional knowledge ob- 

 tained in fifteen years extensive practice, I 

 shall be able to at least induce some more 

 able man to embark in so laudable an under- 

 taking. 



If the attention of Agricultural Societies, 

 or perchance that of Government, should 

 thus be directed to an object that shouid long 

 ago have occupied their most serious consi- 

 deration, these lectures will not have been 

 delivered in vain. 



The character of the lectures will depend 

 much on the kind of class I may have the 

 good fortune to form. They will be suffi- 

 ciently scientific, I trust, for the medical stu- 

 dent, yet not so abstruse or technical as to 

 fail to interest the general inquirer. 



However underrated the veterinary pro-j 

 fession may yet be in the eyes of the public, 

 and even in that of medical men, it will be 

 my pleasing duty to prove to you, that it is a 

 legitimate branch of medical and liberal 

 education, and is closely allied to, or rather 

 a part of medical science, and identified with 

 the agricultural interests and most valuable 

 resources of the country. 



The object of the veterinary surgeon, is 

 precisely that of the practitioner of medi- 

 cine — to preserve health, to relieve disease, 

 to assuage pain, and prolong life; and that, 

 in beings, not indeed possessed of the high 

 intellectual powers of man, but endowed 

 with his susceptibilities of animal pleasure 

 and pain, with many of his good qualities — 

 his useful servants and his willing slaves; 

 and on whom, by having taken them from 

 their natural situations and habits, and by 

 many absurd practices, and by too frequent 

 and disgraceful brutality, he has entailed 

 premature disease and death. 



The practice of the veterinarian must be 

 founded on the same principles with that of 

 our best surgeons, and his mode of education 

 ought to be the same. An accurate know- 

 ledge of the anatomical structure of his pa- 



tients is as necessary to the one as the other. 

 The veterinary surgeon has, however, not 

 one patient only — the mechanism of whose 

 frame, and the healthy function of whose 

 organs he must study — he has many — the 

 horse, the ox, the .sheep, the swine, and the 

 dog. Their structure is different; the func- 

 tions of their various organs are differently 

 discharged ; the same diseases differing in 

 character in each of them — the treatment 

 still more different; and in each are diseases 

 peculiar to that animal. In consequence of 

 this there is required from him — and even 

 more than from our medical practitioner — 

 Sfreat expense of time and study, to fit hira 

 for the discharge of the duties of his profes- 

 sion, honourably towards his employer, and 

 reputably to himself And then our pa- 

 tients are dumb. They cannot, it is true, 

 impose upon us by false statements of symp- 

 toms ; they can relate no symptoms at all, 

 and we are compelled to pay the closest at- 

 tention to the varying and too often bewil- 

 dering indications of disease, and to exercise 

 the greatest degree of tact and discrimina- 

 tion, such as diligent and anxious observa- 

 tion and long experience can alone supply, 

 lest we should mistake the nature and cha- 

 racter of the disease, and rob our employer 

 and destroy our patient. 



In addition to this, our blunders are not 

 like the blunders of others, buried with our 

 patients. There is a regular examination 

 of every animal that dies under the Veteri- 

 narian's hands, and if, as he may readily 

 and pardonably do with his few advantages, 

 he has mistaken the disease, no mercy is 

 shown towards him. 



To the medical student the difference of 

 structure and the difference of function are 

 most interesting, for they lead to difference 

 of disease. Our most enlarged views of the 

 mechanism of the different organs are only 

 comparatively valuable, when they guide us 

 to a comprehensive knowledge of the de- 

 rangement of these organs generally, and 

 particularly in the human being. It is 

 making an extensive portion of animated 

 nature subservient to our improvement in 

 the most important branch of medical sci- 

 ence, the healing art. 



The medical man is occasionally consulted 

 with regard to the diseases of domestic ani- 

 mals. What answer shall he give without 

 compromising himself, if he is unacquainted 

 with the strangely varying characters which 

 the same diseases assume in different ani- 

 mals, the strangely different means of effect- 

 ing cures, and the strangely different effects 

 of the same medicines. 



A knowledge of the Veterinary materia 

 medica, will prevent many unsatisfactory, 



