472 THE PRESENT CONDITION OF VETERINARY MEDICINE. 
and certainly to restore him to health as soon as possible. 
Should the animal die, his carcass is worthless : not so with 
cattle. A fatting ox evinces symptoms of a dangerous disease; a 
difficulty at once occurs, whether is it better to take the doubt- 
ful chance of ultimate cure, with certain and material loss of 
condition, or to convert the animal at once into food with a 
certainty of a reasonable, perhaps a remunerative, price. 
A milch cow is seized with a subacute disease, which will 
require some long time to eradicate: nothing is to be gained by 
slaughtering this animal ; consequently the case is submitted to 
treatment. But it is preposterous to expect the owner to send 
the patient to some public institution : the affection not being 
acute, the general secretions are not markedly interfered with; 
the animal still yields a certain supply of milk, which increases 
as convalescence approaches. This is an insurmountable im- 
pediment to the animal’s removal. Again, cattle are pro- 
verbially unable to bear up against acute affections: to excite 
them by even a short journey would, in the majority of cases, 
be injurious, if not fatal. To sheep and pigs the same rea- 
soning applies : the animals, when sufficiently fat, are mostly 
slaughtered at once ; and when otherwise are of so little worth, 
that their value is soon absorbed in the expenses of medical 
attendance. 
These are grave reasons, we conceive, why cattle have not 
hitherto been sent to veterinary hospitals connected with edu- 
cational establishments. That these difficulties are insurmount- 
able we should be sorry to allow ; albeit, we see no present 
method of overcoming them : but, surmountable or not, the 
argument remains the same. Until veterinary schools are by 
some means supplied with these patients, cattle pathology will 
inevitably continue in its present position. 
But it may be fairly urged, certain cases of disease in cattle 
are treated frequently. True! By whom? The regular prac- 
titioner? The instances are few and far between : anomalous 
as it may appear, the major part of the valuable live stock in 
England is medically superintended by a class of ignorant men, 
whose pretensions consist in the absence of all knowledge of 
their subject, and whose claims to the farmer’s consideration 
are compressed in the statement, that their position enables 
them to spend time and attention at a much lower amount of 
remuneration than the regular practitioner could possibly do. 
The evils of this widely existing system we have yet to 
consider. 
Cirencester and Swindon Express , June 28, 1851. 
