EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
681 
We have no desire to offer any comment on the opening 
address, this we are contented to leave to others ; nevertheless, 
we may be permitted to say, that the subject-matter thereof — 
the correlation of those sciences that appertain to the study 
of Veterinary Medicine — is one of paramount interest. Like 
the links of a chain, each reciprocates the support it receives 
from the other, and thus increased strength and usefulness is 
given to the whole. For although some persons may igno- 
rantly affect to contemn science, averring that it is but of 
little use in practice; we, on the other hand, believe, and 
therefore maintain, that it is essential to the continuance in 
well-being and well-doing of our profession, for without it 
we should soon be like a ship at sea, without a rudder or a 
compass. Slowly have we become convinced of this, and 
tardily indeed have certain divisions of science been admitted 
as parts of our curriculum ; still do we hail what has taken 
place as being indicative of our onward progress, and confi- 
dently hope for its increase. 
One point to which the lecturer adverted appears to us of 
very considerable importance, not only to the profession, but 
to the community at large. We may be permitted to put it in 
the form of a question : Do artificial manures, which have 
become so numerous of late, and are so generally employed, 
cause vegetables — either by inducing in them a luxuriant 
state of growth, or impregnating them with that which is 
in some measure foreign to them — to become productive of 
diseases in animals ? If so, the inquiry that necessarily fol- 
lows is : — Is not the evil thus brought about more than com- 
mensurate with the supposed good that has been obtained 
by their use ? Surely it were better that this forcing system, 
for the sake of gain, should be done away with, rather than 
that the health of our animals should be perilled. Causes, 
both predisposing and exciting, to disease we know have 
always existed, they are the sad consequences of the “ fall 
but whether this be one or the other, we have not yet, 
perhaps, sufficient data to enable us to decide. At any rate 
the question is a suggestive one, and our readers may pos- 
sibly be able to throw some light upon it. 
xxix. 87 
