THE EDITOR. 
465 
Now, the sale of these works — particularly Blaine’s — has not 
been confined to the profession : if it were so, the first edition 
would scarcely have been sold off by this time, and the author 
would have been deprived of the emolument and the profession of 
the advantage of new and improved editions. We, therefore, 
are benefitted rather than otherwise by the public purchasing 
the works in question. 
Now then, with regard to The Veterinarian, my own 
conviction is, that the advantages rendered by this work to the 
profession infinitely counterbalance any injury it may have done. 
It is not and never can be a popular work — its price, and its 
freedom from amusing matters, will always prevent this. No 
one can study the diseases of animals from its pages without the 
sacrifice of considerable time and mental employment, as well as 
expense ; and this protection I should ever be contented to re- 
gard as a safe and effectual shield for our interests. 
Let us place in contrast to this the conduct of the Agricultural 
Association, a body from which so much was expected and so 
little has yet been obtained. Their subscription is 20s. per 
annum, for which, besides other advantages, they furnish their 
members with a quarterly journal of Transactions ; and, not con- 
tent with this, no sooner does an epizootic disease appear, than 
they heedlessly send to all and to each of their members an em- 
pirical account of the treatment of this disease, which, to have 
preserved its character, should have been designated “ Every 
Man his own Cattle Doctor, or, a New Way to do without Vete- 
rinary Surgeons.” I designate the account as empirical, without 
the slightest disrespect to its author, whom no one, I am sure, 
can more highly esteem as a friend of our profession and its 
practitioners than myself; but I style it empirical — although I 
believe that, altogether, it was as rational a mode of treatment 
as could, under the circumstances, have been advised — because 
it is the opinion of one individual with, necessarily, a very limited 
experience of the matter, advising a certain plan of treatment 
for a disease which has appeared in various forms, some attended 
with much danger, and others comparatively slight and danger- 
less. It also necessarily becomes empirical in the hands of those 
who are ignorant of the properties of medicine and the symptoms 
of disease. A Society formed under such favourable auspices 
for the promotion of the interests of agriculturists should not 
thus have sacrificed the present for the future ; they should not, 
by publishing this clap-trap, have retarded the progress of sound 
scientific knowledge of the diseases of cattle; they should not 
have killed the goose for the sake of the golden egg. If, instead 
of this, they had, as they easily could have done, and with little 
VOL. xiv. 3 p 
