324 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



But it is not my purpose, this evening, to speak in general 

 terms of an agricultural education. There is another depart- 

 ment connected with your calling, which in view of the 

 growing live-stock interest in America, and the inevitable 

 consequences of such traffic upon the public health, deserves 

 our most thoughtful consideration. 



Veterinary Science will therefore be our theme for the 

 present hour. And in order that we may fully comprehend the 

 scope of this important branch of knowledge, let us define its 

 boundaries, and thus see the relations which it holds to other 

 departments of learning in a practical point of view. The 

 veterinary calling presents a broad field for study and obser- 

 vation. It comprehends anatomy, physiology and pathology, 

 as well as the general principles of practice; and thus in its 

 scientific aspect, is coextensive with that of human medicine. 

 In fact it should be ranked, by general consent, as a sister 

 profession of the Healing Art, and therefore guarded and 

 cherished with a jealous care by every physician in the land. 

 The age demands that the veterinary art should receive 

 encouragement from our public institutions, and henceforth 

 enjoy an honorable recognition, at least among the learned 

 professions. 



But it is a lamentable fact that this calling has been, to a 

 great extent in this country, confined to the uneducated and 

 pretentious. And the public are alone to tlame for such a 

 state of affairs. Men with no previous knowledge of the 

 causes of disease, nor of the physiological actions of medi- 

 cine, have suddenly been born anew, as it were, in the veter- 

 inary department of our noble healing art. Many there are, 

 in our communit}^ who have already amassed a fortune by 

 such pretentious practice ; and still they have the favor of 

 public patronage, and the reason why the medical profession 

 at large have always been so uncourteous and distant in their 

 intercourse with the veterinary doctors, so called, is the fact 

 that so few of them are educated, and worthy a strict profes- 

 sional acquaintance. Besides, such men usually follow set 

 prescriptions, good or bad, as the case may be, in their prac- 

 tice, and thus, without discrimiuation, they often administer 

 the same kind of a "dose" for a great variety of affections. 

 Of course these remarks do not apply to the few regularly 



