470 THE PRESENT CONDITION OF VETERINARY MEDICINE 
played with — primary symptoms neglected ; what a fearful 
amount of loss results from the maltreatment of the ignorant and 
empirical practitioner. Did the farmer rightly estimate the 
mischief done by a sapient attendant, or the sportsman ade- 
quately realize the jeopardy of his "favourite hunter” under 
the tender mercies of that greatest plague of life “ a clever 
groom,” who can carry his horses through their three doses of 
physic with any man in the world, how different would be the 
rate of animal mortality — how closer the connexion between ve- 
terinary medicine and agriculture as economic sciences. 
Medicine, like other systems, was called into existence by a 
present necessity ; the inconvenience arising from impaired 
function or organism led men to search for remedy — actions 
were noted, consequences observed, causes sought out ; till at 
last, beyond the cure of disease, great minds saw an end of more 
paramount importance — its prevention : we speak, be it ob- 
served, of medicine as a science, distinguishing no difference in 
its application to man or beast : practice may be modified, even 
opposed ; but the aim, in either instance, remains the same ; in 
each is involved the knowledge of structure and function — la- 
boriously acquired acquaintance with diseased modifications — 
minute knowledge of medicinal action — a combination of rapid 
perception, manual dexterity, and mental adaptiveness, which 
are collectively the results of uniform application, unflinching 
perseverance, and untiring investigation. We quote from the 
Maine Farmer for Nov. 21, 1850. 
“ Thanks to this enlightened age, reforms are germinating, 
and spreading their giant influence throughout the length and 
breadth of this country, and ere long the American people will 
boast of their veterinary colleges. They already begin to see 
the errors of the past. Dear-bought experience has taught 
them, that the treatment of disease in domesticated animals in- 
volves as great an amount of knowledge as the practice of 
human medicine, and that none other than high-minded, in- 
telligent, and merciful men should ever practise this art.” 
That veterinary medicine is not duly estimated by the agri- 
culturist is clear; why it is not we propose to inquire. Firstly, 
we have no desire to cover the fact, that the anatomy, and dis- 
eases of cattle have found no efficient investigators: we are 
fully alive to the circumstance that essays have been written 
in times of emergency, during the prevalence of some fatal 
epizootic; we are aware that pleuro-pneumonia in cattle, and 
small-pox in sheep, have been discussed in a manner that alike 
reflects credit on the authors, and demonstrates the existence of 
knowledge in the few ; but take the names of Percivall, Turner, 
Morton, and Bracy Clark, as writers on anatomy, pathology, 
