PATHOLOGY AND GENERAL TREATMENT OF CATTLE. 57 
You will be called on to perform other important operations. 
Your assistance will be required in relieving the parturient cow. 
Make yourselves familiar with all the varied forms of unnatural 
presentation, for it is only in very difficult cases that your aid 
will be required. The farmer or his hind most times officiate when 
no very great obstacle exists. Nothing will add more to your 
fame than the having performed with success what they could not 
accomplish. You will frequently, also, be required to extract, by 
manuduction, the placenta, and, to very delicate stomachs, it will 
be a nauseous affair, particularly after decomposition has com- 
menced ; but the old adage is trite, “dirty hands get clean mo- 
ney;” therefore the ringed finger and delicate hand must, gene- 
rally speaking, be laid aside in the labours of country practice. 
One thing more I would add, and that is, make every endeavour 
to learn the true nature and character of disease, and the value 
or worthlessness of the animal from external conformity. In 
severe or acute diarrhoea particularly, you will often be called on to 
give your opinion, both by dealers and farmers, when dispute 
arises. The external appearance of the animal will, in most cases, 
tell you its real worth, and the length of its existence. I shall 
not enter into a minute detail of these things, but leave them to 
your able Professor. 
Make yourself acquainted with the colour and consistence of 
the faecal discharges, as they are influenced by or produced from 
the different sorts of food. If you do not attend to this, you may 
err in you prognosis, and that much to your discredit. 
There are many mechanical disorders that you will be called on 
to treat ; such as choking from various causes, &c., which I am 
fearful you can never fully attain a thorough knowledge of at our 
institution, although, as I have before stated, you may have a full 
and instructive acquaintance with anatomy and pathology. Nei- 
ther do I see how it can be fully carried out, except there is attached 
to our College a farm for the admission of every kind of stock. 
This is, in my opinion, an indispensable requisite ; the farming, 
the manuring, the buying, and selling, to be left, occasionally at 
least, to the judgment of the senior pupils. Such a plan, sys- 
tematically and honestly carried out, would form an ample and a 
valuable field for the acquirement of that knowledge which the 
veterinary surgeon ought to possess. In conjunction with these 
all-important circumstances, we peculiarly possess — and it is a 
mine of wealth — the talent and the industry of Professors 
Simonds and Morton ; the latter of whom, in addition to his other 
duties, could, with credit to himself, teach the rudiments of agri- 
cultural chemistry. 
[To be continued.] 
H 
VOL. XVI. 
