4S0 
CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
advance the respectability of the profession, shall be suppressed, 
because it may, possibly, get into the hands of and afford in- 
formation to those whom we consider our opponents ; and 
opponentsthey will be, whether The V eterina rian is published 
or not ? — a question which I hope requires no serious refutation. 
If the argument is good for any thing, it is good to the whole extent, 
and should go the length of declaring that no veterinary works 
should be published, for fear they may get into unhallowed hands. 
But judging from my knowledge of the neighbourhood in which 
I reside, it appears to me that The Veterinarian is circulated 
almost exclusively amongst veterinary surgeons. I have never 
seen it in the gentleman’s study or the farmer’s parlour, and am 
very sure it is not taken by the lower sort of farriers or cowleeches 
here: they could not read it if they would, and they would not 
take the trouble to read it if they could ; for they are above all 
book knowledge beyond their book of receipts, and, perhaps, an 
old edition of Clater, or some such volume as that was thirty 
years ago. 
I do not think The Veterinarian likely to suit those who 
are fond of quacking their own horses or cattle. The information 
is too diffuse, and spread over too wide a range for them to find 
at once what they are in search of. They first perceive that the 
animal is ill — they then consult their oracle to discover what is 
the matter, and the receipt to cure it. They must have the 
“bane and antidote”-— the complaint, and what will mend it — 
before them at one view ; and, as the lady who is fond of physic- 
ing all the poor in her parish, has her “Domestic Medicine,” so the 
horse-quack has his “White.” But the former does not think of 
taking a medical journal, nor the latter The Veterinarian. 
It is true that the public papers took every opportunity to 
collect and circulate any information they could obtain relating 
to the “Epidemic” at the first commencement of that malady ; 
and considering the consternation that existed in the country 
respecting it, and the anxiety to be furnished with some infor- 
mation as to its nature and treatment, the circumstance is hardly 
to be wondered at, and not perhaps greatly to be condemned. It 
is however my firm conviction, that, so far from our pecuniary 
interest being compromised by the free circulation of veterinary 
publications, it has been and will be advantaged by such practice ; 
for if they do get into the hands of gentlemen and intelligent agri- 
culturists, the result is, and will be, to increase their confidence 
in a class of men who have shewn that they possess literary and 
scientific attainments, and I have almost invariably found that they 
who have a taste for veterinary acquirements themselves are the 
best friends to the veterinary surgeon, and will in no way tolerate 
