550 
CORK KSPONDENCK WITH 
rated reports of which had led them to suppose that its baneful 
influence might prove ruinous to the owners of cattle, either by 
carrying off whole herds of them, or rendering them so ill-thriven 
that they would be useless for the purpose of grazing to fatten — 
on such an occasion of serious apprehension, I say, to whom 
were the members of the Royal English Agricultural Society to 
apply for assistance, but to the gentleman who receives a con- 
siderable annual sum out of the society’s funds as a remunera- 
tion for the performance of certain duties, and which additional 
duties we, simple-minded country veterinarians, imagined were 
expressly those of teaching veterinary students cattle pathology, 
and not the performance of such an arduous task as that of 
writing a circular, which was, in effect, to make the whole agri- 
cultural population in England veterinary surgeons. 
But, Sir, joking apart, we cannot reasonably suppose that the 
object sought to be obtained by the noblemen and gentlemen 
who constitute the Royal English Agricultural Society was that 
of procuring from Professor Sewell a short system of veterinary 
education that would, in effect, enable them to dispose of the 
humble veterinarian’s services, and render him, professionally, a 
useless member of society ; but rather that of simply procuring 
from the newly-made Professor of Cattle Pathology a panacea 
for that truly protean malady, the epidemic, which was so pre- 
valent among neat cattle, and other domesticated animals, in the 
year 1840. It, however, unfortunately happened, both for the 
agricultural interest and veterinary profession, that Mr. Sewell 
forgot that the English agriculturists were not educated veterina- 
rians, and consequently deficient in that professional tact which 
was so requisite to enable them to recognise the different stages 
of disease, and test the efficacy of his receipts, by adopting them 
according to the indications of treatment. Thus the Professor’s 
receipts too frequently failed to effect a cure, and the conse- 
quence was, that the graziers, after a little dear-bought experience, 
abandoned his practical principles , and left nature to relieve her- 
self, which she effected with much better success ; for I have heard 
many of them say that, they 7iever lost a beast after they left off 
giving the prescribed medicine , and that their cattle got over the 
complaint much sooner without it than with it. So that our wor- 
thy Professor was peculiarly unfortunate in his benevolent inten- 
tion, as his receipts imposed upon the credulity of the agricul- 
turists, and led them to conclude that they were in possession 
of a specific remedy for the murrain. But in proportion as those 
remedial measures failed to answer public expectation, the circu- 
lar created a want of confidence in our skill, and engendered the 
impression that our knowledge in cattle pathology was strangely 
