ON PLEUROPNEUMONIA. 
229 
public e)^e, upon the book shelves of the worthy Secretary of the 
College, Professor Sewell, — to be ever and anon handed to a 
“ Subscriber, ” should he perchance ask for “ The Regulations 
of the College,” to which “ a list of veterinary sugeons” comes, as a 
sort of incidental appendix, by way of eking out the printer’s sheet, 
which the names and addresses of the subscribers, though given at 
full length, are found insufficient to fill up. 
There is a remark or two in Mr. Walton Mayer’s address to the 
agriculturists of Great Britain, on the engrossing subject of Pleuro- 
pneumonia, which we are unwilling to let pass unnoticed. “ It is 
impossible,” says Mr. Mayhew, “ to make every man his own cat- 
tle-doctor.” So think we. But so thought not the renowned 
Clater, whose work, entitled “ Every Man his own Cattle-doctor,” 
went through, we think, somewhere about seven-and-twenty edi- 
tions : a convincing proof, according to the author, as stated in one 
of his prefaces, of its excellence. To this, however, we take occa- 
sion to demur. The little experience we have had in such mat- 
ters has been sufficient to convince us that the sale of a book of a 
mediocre class is more influenced by the publisher than by the 
merits of the work itself ; and the circumstance of Clater’s and 
White’s, and other veterinary works being the property of asso- 
ciated publishers, sufficiently accounts for the unparalelled sale 
they have had. Only let a man get up a work holding out “ re- 
cipes ” and “ cures” for every thing, and make it the interest of an 
influential publisher to father it, who will invite certain journals 
to puff it, and the sale of the book is insured, the public being 
every way gulled to their hearts’ content. This is one reason why 
cattle-medicine continues to be in many parts of the country so 
barbarously practised. Another reason for the unadvanced state 
of this branch of veterinary science being, as stated by Mr. Mayer, 
the little attention the “ colleges,” have paid to it, compared to the 
cultivation that has been given to horse medicine. Regard but 
for a moment the condition of the two branches of science. On 
the one hand, look at the perfection to which all medical matters 
concerning horses have been brought ; and, on the other, look at 
the lamentably depressed state of cattle, and sheep, and we 
