THE PROGRESS OF VETERINARY SCIENCE. 403 
hundred legitimate practitioners in the British Islands, only 
a very few care to record their experience, or, indeed, to en- 
lighten or instruct others, thus working together for one 
great object, offering prospects of equal benefit to all — the 
advancement of veterinary science. 
Too often do we find the pages of the Veterinarian oc- 
cupied by profitless discussions regarding methods of teaching 
at present pursued, and means for their improvement ; long 
dissertations on the unprolific and unprofitable stalking-horse, 
educational reform , and the elevation of the body corporate — 
which seems about as distant and as difficult of accomplish- 
ment by these means as the discovery of an antidote for the 
virus of variola or a cure for glanders. Were it not for an 
occasional paper read at, or the records of the proceedings of, 
some provincial or central association, keeping alive the interest 
of things scientific, I am afraid we should soon sink below 
par. 
When the history of the Victorian era of veterinary science 
comes to be w'ritten, it will present too few names worthy of 
the pen of the honest historian. Nor can it be much wondered 
at when we consider how many of us are thrown on the world 
as legitimate practitioners when we have scarcely mastered 
the hare rudiments of science, to say nothing of practical 
application of the principles we have learned. Plunged at 
once into the whirl of business, to strike out for a living, 
catering for work and attending to its drudgery is almost in- 
compatible with the further pursuit of scientific truth or study 
of any kind, to say nothing of the recording of cases or original 
observations or research. The mind, under such circum- 
stances, gets jaded, worn out, and sometimes miserable, in- 
tolerant of any effort, and the would-be man of science too 
often settles down into a compounder and vendor of colic and 
cow drinks, hoof ointments and sheep dips ; indeed, the only 
interest it keeps awake is the pecuniary, which is all involved 
in the pharmacy. That such reasons may account for the 
paucity of communications, will be readily admitted; still, I 
think every one should consider himself bound to do something 
for the general good, striving to render some service to science 
by his studying it, to realise the advantage of having studied 
his profession, not merely as an object of gain, but from a love 
of its intrinsic excellence, always remembering that medicine 
is a progressive science, and that whilst the wise and learned 
who have studied it have done much to its advancement 
more remains to be accomplished ; that the realm of animated 
nature is ever a fresh school, and a love for it the best incentive 
to speed us on our life-long education. 
