INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
633 
next call your attention to microscopical observations, as an 
auxiliary to your studies. It is now an almost universally 
admitted fact, that the use of the microscope has conferred a 
great and lasting benefit on medical science in general, and 
especially on physiology. We are enabled by its employment 
clearly to comprehend many things which before were enig- 
matical. Digestion, secretion, nutrition, absorption, and other 
vital functions, no longer rest on mere hypotheses for their 
explanation. The microscope may be said to have disclosed, 
in so many instances, the intimate structure of the organs 
concerned in these processes, and to have shown that orga- 
nization is altogether independent of vascularity ; that the 
vessels are but the conveyers of the raw material, as it were, 
in the form of fluid blood, and that nutrition, secretion, &c., 
depend on the law of endosmosmic action and cell-formation. 
This instrument may therefore be said to have gone further to- 
wards the elucidation of physiological truths, than even .. 
organic chemistry — valuable as it is, and ever will be. Nor 
does the microscope stand second to any other means in the 
study of either anatomy or pathology. No dissection, how- 
ever minute, is at all to be compared in beauty or delicacy, 
to well-prepared microscopic sections or injections. Besides 
it has this advantage, that while it enlarges our ideas, and 
opens up to our view a new world of wonders, it so simplifies 
everything, that the commonest understanding can readily 
imbibe the greatest truths. 
From these considerations, I pass to the third element of 
veterinary or medical science, — pathology, or the nature and 
causes of disease. As you may anticipate, your teachers will 
give to pathology all the consideration in their power, 
bothTn’ the lecture-room and the hospital of the'institution. 
The practical tendency of the varied means of acquiring 
knowledge, which I have previously named, is to the better 
understanding of disease. There are, however, some things 
which have a more immediate and direct bearing on patho- 
logical science than others, and among these may be named 
hygiene , or the preservation of health ; and therapeutics , or that 
which relates to the treatment of disease. Hygiene, I fear, 
has not received that amount of attention from us, as a pro- 
fession, which it deserves. Remember, it is not only the 
province of the veterinary surgeon to use his utmost endea- 
vours towards the removal or mitigation of disease ; but 
equally so for its prevention. How much good will he effect, 
and how much will his reputation be raised, if, by the study 
of the laws of epizootics for instance, he is enabled to arrest 
the progress of but one of these destructive pests ? These 
xxix. 81 
