34 <C ON THE FUTURE OF PHYSIC.” 
in both the outbreaks of disease to which we have referred the 
animals remained in the Agricultural Hall for seven days after 
admission without showing any signs of disease. All the facts 
point to indirect infection occurring after the commencement 
of the show, and so long as infectious diseases prevail among 
cattle and sheep in the metropolis and in various parts of the 
country, it is impossible to entirely avert the danger which is 
incurred whenever animals are collected together for the 
purpose of sale or exhibition. 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
DR. RICHARDSON “ON THE EUTURE OE PHYSIC.” 
At a special meeting of “ The Saint Andrew's Medical 
Graduates/' held at the Freemasons’ Tavern, December 2nd, 
Dr. Richardson, the President, gave the following address : 
it was, perhaps, more poetic and telling than any of his 
former addresses. “ Indulging one day in a luxurious day- 
dream by the seaside, it came to me that it would be a pleasing 
and useful task to devote occasional hours to the construction 
of a history of the science of medicine of the Victorian era 
... to write of the men who, moving actively amongst us at 
home and abroad, were worthy the pen of the honest histo- 
rian ... to narrate the natural history of the diseases we see 
now around us in our daily tasks, that they who come after 
us may know with what we had to contend, and may compare 
our present practice with their own . . . that they may mea- 
sure faithfully the course and progress of curative art, from 
this epoch to theirs. So vividly did the scope and character 
of the work appear before me that, even to minuteness of its 
•detail, the plan was fixed in my mind; and since then I have 
found the labour of carrying it out a natural and agreeable 
pursuit, the which, if 1 like to accomplish it, will perchance 
yield a work likely to live long when 1 am dead. As I have 
been writing on the past and present, a vista has often 
opened of the future of medicine, of the courses which 
medical science will take under the influence of changes of 
thought respecting the physical forces of the universe; of 
the new bases of the science, and of the perfections that 
will spring from them; of the greater knowledge of life and 
functions of life ; and of the more certain modes of pie- 
