G02 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 
the mind derives from being engaged in the acquirement of 
knowledge; it being incontrovertible, that as we advance in 
this pursuit, new sources of gratification are opened up to us 
with the increase of an intellectual strength ; the mind being 
like the body — the more it is exercised, the stronger it 
becomes. 
I have spoken as unto those who are capable of appre- 
ciating my intentions, and have endeavoured to point out to 
you the desirability of your becoming conversant with 
scientific principles, these being as necessary to you in your 
professional avocation as the pole-star is to the mariner while 
traversing the trackless ocean. Yet we are told before we 
begin to build a tower, to sit down and count the cost 
thereof ; and certainly we should be fully assured that the 
studies we are about to enter upon will repay the labour of 
investigation, and the advantages to be derived from them 
compensate for the time and means expended while becoming 
acquainted with them. Convinced of this, in antecedent 
years I have essayed to give something like a series of lectures; 
and having first spoken of the advantages medicine had 
derived from chemistry, and its then state, I considered the 
function of digestion with the food of animals, and showed 
how alterations in either may and do become causes of 
disease, and how by the aid science affords us, we can often 
explain and likewise remove the effects that are produced. 
To this succeeded the air they breathe, with the function of 
respiration. And here, too, it was seen how deviations from 
the normal state frequently receive explanation by a reference 
to chemical laws, and by the same means the evil which has 
arisen is counteracted. Lastly, the water they drink was 
commented on by me in a similar way. 
It is now my intention briefly to review some of the 
curative methods that were adopted ere science had assumed 
its rightful place in connexion with medicine, and thus to 
complete the series. In doing so I shall have, of course, to 
refer to veterinary practice ; and it will not surprise you in 
the least to find that equal, if not greater, absurdities pre- 
vailed in it, through an ignorance of right principles, than in 
the human. We shall thus bring the thereology of the past 
and the present before you, so as to ascertain if any benefits 
have really resulted from an application of science, and if all 
has yet been done that might be. Need I say, the contrast 
will be a striking one? for a strange medley presents itself 
to me in the retrospect, and I hardly know what to do 
with the farrago of trash that lies before me ; w r hile almost 
all of you, I doubt not, from the storehouse of your 
