565 
THE VETERINARIAN, JULY 1, 1870. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat. — Ciceeo. 
MORBID ANATOMY IN ITS RELATION TO VETERINARY 
JURISPRUDENCE. 
In our courts of law, all over the country, veterinary sur- 
geons are constantly put in the witness box to give evidence 
respecting the duration of a disease, the existence of which 
is admitted, but the date of origin of which is in dispute. If 
ever it should happen that a painstaking compiler in the 
future collect all the records of trials in which the question 
of the presence of a certain disease at a particular period has 
been the subject of inquiry, say for the last thirty or forty 
years, the volume will form an interesting, perhaps an amus- 
ing, certainly not a satisfactory commentary upon the value 
of professional evidence. 
The public will not judge the members of one profession 
harshly on account of difference of opinion, because it very 
contentedly accords the right of difference to men of all pro- 
fessions, doctors in particular, and is always rather disposed 
to smile at scientific disputes than to grieve about them ; but 
among ourselves this contented indifference can only be 
indulged at the expense of the advancement of our science. 
By common consent any one may have an opinion upon 
any subject, as an opinion is no more than an impression, of 
the correctness of which there is no proof ; but it is a matter 
of great importance to distinguish between opinions which 
are the result of a deliberate weighing of evidence, and those 
which are formed spontaneously by an inexplicable mental 
process which mainly consists in elaborating ideas out of 
nothing. When an accomplished pathologist makes a care- 
ful post-mortem examination of an animal that died of disease 
affecting the lungs or heart, submits the morbid structures 
to rigid scrutiny, using all the aids which chemistry and the 
microscope are capable of affording, and after becoming 
acquainted with the details of the changes which have 
xliii. 38 
