THE PROGRESS OF VETERINARY SCIENCE. 407 
Modern experience has demonstrated that many methods of 
treating various disorders which were taught and sanctioned 
by the profession twenty years ago are no longer applicable. 
As examples of this, I may mention the treatment of lami- 
nitis, introduced by Mr. Broad, now extensively and success- 
fully practised ; the operation for canker, introduced by the 
Manchester school ; treatment of wounds by metallic suture 
and carbolic acid ; and others of a similar nature. Not to 
enlarge on the complete change in our ideas as to the nature 
of disease, which in many cases used to be regarded as an 
enemy we were called on to lay siege to, attack, and con- 
quer, may now be regarded as our best friend, the natural 
result of those injuries to which the animal economy is ne- 
cessarily exposed, the efforts of nature to expel from the 
system the noxious causes by which the so-called disease has 
been produced. It is when we approach the province of the 
organic chemist (to whom we are looking for the solution of 
the occult changes in the blood and secretions under diseased 
actions) that we find ourselves most deficient and progress 
less apparent. 
The ethical relations of the profession are in a transition 
state, and some progress towards improvement is observable. 
The conventionalisms of differences of education and title, and 
other pettinesses which set professional brother against brother, 
and the public against both, are fast dying out, or appearing 
in their true character as utterly insignificant, when com- 
pared with the beneficent and grand objects which a united 
profession might accomplish. The associative principle — 
such a prominent feature of the present day — has greatly 
assisted towards this consummation ; whilst its other advan- 
tages are so palpable as to make one almost wonder why it is not 
universal. Certainly no one living man has contributed more, 
both by word and deed, to effect this than the veteran Thomas 
Greaves. Unfortunately in this Dutch paradise of a country 
we are not so far advanced as to unite in a scientific brother- 
hood ; or we are too selfish to permit ourselves to do so. To 
some of the older members, centrally situated, I would beg 
respectfully to say, “ Try it.” 
The preliminary and practical examinations are signs of 
progress, forced on by the advancing spirit of the times — 
symptoms that the majority of the members of Council are 
desirous we shall advance according to the much-used aphor- 
ism, ec Practice with science,” and show us that they are in 
earnest in their efforts to raise and maintain the prestige of 
the profession. As to the proximate or ultimate effects of the 
practical test, it would be premature to speculate. Although 
