134 VETERINARY MEDICINE. 



Goodsir medical inheritance of eighty years, the John 

 Hunter ideal, or that of Monro sccundus, his personal 

 ambition to become a great surgeon, the good and ad- 

 vancement of the medical school, and all the cherished 

 hopes of a large and exultant promise, were scattered to 

 the winds by this refusal of his services in an institution 

 that he could not have failed to benefit. Sensitive to a 

 degree, he keenly felt what appeared to him to have 

 arisen from a narrow-minded opposition, and from 

 that day eschewed all relations with the Edinburgh 

 Infirmary. 



In 1848 Goodsir became a member of the Highland 

 and Agricultural Society, and for many years acted as 

 chairman of the veterinary department, and assisted at 

 the annual examination of Professor Dick's pupils for 

 the veterinary surgeon's diploma. He used to be 

 frequently consulted on strictly agricultural matters ; 

 thus the Marquis of Tweeddale (June 1855) wished 

 his opinion on the feeding qualities of turnips that 

 were known to contain 90 per cent of water in their 

 composition. The Marquis had drawn off 25 per cent 

 of the water, and found that cattle ate the turnips with 

 the same relish. Goodsir, viewing the turnips as arti- 

 ficial food — grass being the natural aliment of the ox — 

 advised, as Flourens' experiments in feeding sheep 

 with carrots reduced to a fine pulp indicated, the 

 crushing of the turnip into a pulp, in the expectation 

 that it would pass to the third or fourth stomach and 

 save the chewing of the cud. The water he did not 

 object to, as it might be necessary for the economy of 



