ADVICE TO VETERINARY STUDENTS. 
5 
such communication — and a most important one — is ever before us, 
through the kind and honest feelings of the Editor of this Journal, 
whose extensive acquirements in every branch of science should 
be felt and acknowledged by all. His pages are ever open to the 
observations of his professional brethren, and their labours, when 
dictated by feelings of harmony and good fellowship, and with the 
sole intent of diffusing information and establishing facts, must 
contribute greatly to the increase of knowledge. 
Our own Veterinary Medical Society, which has established a 
reputation that reflects much honour on its members, and has en- 
rolled on its lists the names of all our most eminent professors and 
practitioners, must be a most fertile source of imparting instruction 
to the profession in general; for “knowledge not imparted is but 
as gold in the mine.” In a science encumbered with so many dif- 
ficulties, and encompassed by so many sources of error, it is obvious 
that much caution must be exercised in arriving at any thing like 
accuracy or truth in our conclusions; and hence the stronger grounds 
for uniting together, and imparting every useful observation for the 
elucidation of disease. 
The student should first acquire an extensive collection of well- 
authenticated facts, and trace among them sequences or relations, 
particularly the relation of cause and effect, and then deduce gene- 
ral facts or general principles. He should strive to ascertain the 
characters or symptoms of disease, by which disorders are indicated, 
and distinguished from other diseases which resemble them. He 
must make careful examinations of the structure and functions of 
living bodies themselves, as existing in health, as altered by injury 
and disease, and as influenced by remedies. He must remember 
that his opportunities of entering upon these researches, and of ac- 
quiring a proper knowledge of his profession, are much greater than 
were those of his predecessors. He must so consider himself 
wedded to his profession as not to rest satisfied with the mere 
working out the advantages and discoveries that have resulted 
from the labours of others; but he must feel himself bound to exert 
all his own energies in advancing its onward progress. He must 
consider his profession as a sacred deposit placed in his hands for 
the benefit and relief of the animal creation. 
He will now see the absolute necessity of becoming an excellent 
anatomist, which can only be acquired ‘by very frequent, careful, 
and minute dissections. He will find this when his attention will 
be called by his talented Professor at the College to a diligent cul- 
tivation of morbid and comparative anatomy, whereby the localities, 
the varieties, and the natural effects (whether perceptible during 
life or after death) of almost all the diseased states of the body 
will be more accurately ascertained : and, by devoting as much 
