408 EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS, 
have never suffered ourselves to be seduced to write “ Every 
Man his own Horse and Cattle Doctor “ The Groom’s Oracle;” 
an “ Encyclopaedia of Veterinary Medicine and Farriery,” &c. 
&c. In the language of our Correspondent, if we are (or profess 
to be) “ men of science,” let us “ write as men of science !” 
In human affairs, popular medicine or empiricism — for the 
line of demarcation between them is not a very broad one — has 
received some serious checks and warnings from deaths and 
coroners’ inquests. But the poor dumb animal has no coroner to 
bring his destroyer to account. Life after life, and limb after 
limb, may be sacrificed, and no one be found to make a com- 
plaint. The doctor who can restore a lame or a sick horse in the 
shortest time, and at the smallest cost to his master, has an un- 
doubted claim to preference ; but are promises or assertions, and 
a parcel of worthless fabricat ions, perhaps “ certificates of cures 
performed,” to weigh with us against practical facts and results 
whose value experience is daily unfolding to us 1 And, yet> 
how are the public gulled and cheated by such lies and devices ! 
St. Bel, the first Professor at our Veterinary School, found 
veterinary affairs in a rude and barbarous state at the time he 
commenced teaching ; since which, through the exertions of his 
successors, and various of their pupils who have emanated from 
the schools, they have become greatly altered and improved. 
Let us then, since we have so far advanced, not go backward 
by attempts to reduce our art to a level with the capacities of 
men who have never studied its elements, much less can com- 
prehend its principles. St. Bel prefixed a frontispiece to his 
Works, representing empiricism scared at the apparition of 
science, with the motto, 
A l’aspect de la verite l’ignorance s’enfuit. 
This must be our motto too. To quackery let us present the 
bold and truthful visage of science. Though the former may 
prosper and thrive for a while, whenever thus confronted will 
the arch-del uder be found quailing and shrinking from the 
daylight. 
