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THE CENTRAL SOCIETY OF 
Under these circumstances, as the organ of the Society, it is my 
duty to endeavour to fulfil this difficult mission ; and I do so, con- 
fidently reposing in the indulgence of those around me, who will 
not expect in this our first essay such precision and form of 
language as is usually heard from men experienced in solemnities 
of the kind. 
The first efforts of the Society had to be directed to its own in- 
stitution (in 1844), and a difficult matter this turned out, surrounded 
as we found ourselves at the time by convulsions everywhere 
agitating our professional world. 
Far from me, gentlemen, be the thought of wishing to rekindle 
extinct animosities ; but, as historian of our Society, I must for a 
moment recall days gone by, in order to shew how it first came to 
be instituted. 
For some years many veterinarians of the provinces had shewn, 
by their example, the advantages to be derived from scientific 
association, ere Paris had dreamt of any such movement. 
Veterinary science, for whose improvement our Society is 
founded, is that branch of knowledge which is engaged in the con- 
servation, perfectionization, and utilization of domestic animals. 
To attain this triple object, so vast, so complex, calls for the con- 
currence of anatomy, physiology, hygiene, medical science, natural 
history, agriculture, physics, chemistry, botany, mechanics, and even 
law ; or, rather, each of these branches of knowledge furnishes a 
sort of contingent towards the constitution of this complex, diver- 
sified, and yet harmonizing whole, called veterinary science. 
At first view, it might seem that an assemblage so vast and 
extensive required the concours of many individuals specially 
devoted to each department, in order that, by a sort of division of 
labour, all the detail might be met, and better worked out; a 
system, according to which a veterinary society should be a re- 
union of anatomists, physiologists, agriculturists, surgeons, veteri- 
narians, chemists, grooms, physicians, jurisconsults, and even 
blacksmiths, each contributing, according to his vocation, to the 
common work. 
This, however, would deprive the veterinary art of its indivi- 
dual character; would convert it into a sort of pcle-mele, of group- 
ing without order, without method, without object; a crowd of 
ideas and opinions, of works good in themselves perhaps, but 
without connexion between them, and frequently without any 
possible application. 
What constitutes the individuality of veterinary science is the 
regular and methodic disposition of these contingent parts ; — ana- 
tomy, physics, chemistry, botany, agriculture, jurisprudence, shoe- 
ing, &c. ranged around the other central and preponderating parts, 
