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EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
There are many diseases of animals about which very 
little beyond the bare facts of symptoms and morbid appear- 
ances are known ; it can scarcely be questioned that the 
veterinary profession is bound to investigate all these problems 
in pathology with the hope of effecting their solution ; but in 
the present state of the profession investigation is quite im- 
possible. Individual members may devote their spare hours 
to the prosecution of inquiries which are barren of any 
really valuable results on account of their want of relation 
to each other, but of deliberate and exhaustive examination 
of the important subjects which year by year become urgent 
in their demands upon our attention there is none and can 
be none until the proper machinery is set in action. 
Assuming for the moment that the Veterinary Pathological 
Society was at present in perfect working order, holding 
its meetings regularly every month, and being meanwhile 
in correspondence with members all over the kingdom, how 
perfectly practicable an investigation on any given subject 
would then become. We may select as a probable question 
for inquiry, “ blood poisoning ” with its many forms, lc black 
quarter,” (t splenic apoplexy,” and other morbid states which 
have no distinguishing appellations at all, or are known only 
as “ distempers.” Members of the Society residing in 
localities where these diseases are rife might be formally dele- 
gated to the work of inquiry in sections which should in- 
clude every phase of investigation. Nothing that might throw 
light on the causes, nature, cure or prevention of the malady 
would be neglected, and under such a system of analysis is 
it too much to say that we should possess more extended and 
exact knowledge of this class of diseases at the expiration of 
a year after the commencement of the work than we have 
gained by spasmodic and intermittent investigations which 
have ended in unpractical speculations ever since we became 
a profession ? There would be no fear of the Society lan- 
guishing for want of mental food ; the danger would really 
lie in the opposite direction, and it would need careful pilot- 
ing for some time to avoid the danger of being wrecked on 
the huge masses of dark ignorance and prejudice which 
have too long stopped the way. 
