IRISH CENTRAL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 159 
same way as the human species, if a due amount of substance is not 
supplied to them, they waste and die as you would. Influences 
varying according to circumstances affect their health; as with us, 
they have their likes and dislikes, and are rendered comfortable and 
thrive, or uncomfortable and unthrifty, according to the usage they 
receive from those who have charge of them. They are subject to 
disease, most of them similar to those we suffer from, are governed 
by the same laws as those we are under ; they are also cured, if 
curable at all, by agents of the same nature. Lesions of structure, 
whether accidentally or intentionally produced, are repaired by the 
same processes. These processes are retarded or facilitated by the 
same judicious or injudicious management. In fact, the same treat- 
ment, in principle, is applicable to the biped and the quadruped ; 
therefore, for the veterinary surgeon to be as successful in practice 
as the human surgeon, he must be equally scientific. It must be 
so. I cannot understand how it should be otherwise if science, as 
applied to medicine, is of any use at all.” 
Nothing can be truer than these views of Mr. Varnell which I 
have just quoted, and which, as expressing my own so fully, I have 
ventured to copy out. 
Anatomy, as the basis of our profession, must be thoroughly 
known to understand the function of parts and the uses of the 
various organs in health and in disease. 
Pathology, the doctrine of disease, informs us of the various 
derangements of function and structure, and enables us to discrimi- 
nate between various forms of disease. 
Chemistry brings us to a knowledge of the remedies likely to be 
of use in combating those derangements, and a thorough knowledge 
of them is as necesssry to the veterinary surgeon who desires to be 
anything higher than a mere practitioner as it is to the human 
surgeon. 
The advantages arising to the profession from the establishment 
of veterinary associations in England being so very great, I need 
not enlarge upon them, as I should only be doing what has been 
often expressed in the Veterinarian. Science is made up of the 
combined experiences and observations of its followers ; it neces- 
sarily depends for its advancement on the careful collection of addi- 
tional facts. As Mr. Greaves, to whom we are under a great 
obligation for his kindness in assisting at the foundation of this 
association last April, says in one of the addresses he delivered some 
years ago, our object and resolve ought to be to disseminate informa- 
tion broadcast; to indoctrinate the profession: no knowledge is 
really worthless, no honest search for it in vain. 
But I may now be permitted to refer more fully than any of you 
w 7 ould, perhaps, feel inclined to, to the great mischief which has 
arisen to the profession in this country from the personal jealousy 
which exists among so many of the members of the profession, and 
the unguarded opinions which are frequently expressed with respect 
to the manner of the practice of others in the same profession. I 
suppose there is no man in any of the learned professions who has 
