THE EDITOR. 
557 
be given, and I am quite certain, that if a committee, or medical 
staff, composed of one of each of the above, were formed, and 
aided by “Blaine’s Outlines of the Veterinary Art,” “ Perci- 
vall’s Hippo-pathology,” and The Veterinarian, and a hun- 
dred patients before them, they would not as a body, or indivi- 
dually, be able to ascertain what part of the animal was suffering 
disease, nor how to treat the patient advantageously for disease, 
if they knew what was amiss. 
To be afraid of publishing in The Veterinarian and to the 
world, the symptoms, treatment, and termination of cases of dis- 
ease, is little better than to tell the public, that I, a veterinary 
surgeon, have some famous books, which tell me the names of all 
diseases, and a receipt for every one of them; and if you could 
but get those books without further trouble, you could be your own 
doctors, and not only cure disease for yourselves, but teach others 
also. Happily, however, for the scientific and industrious part of 
o.ur profession (and equally so for other professions), no teaching 
at the Veterinary College, nor a diploma, however well earned, 
can do more for its possessor than to obtain for him an intro- 
duction to practice, and qualify him, by the knowledge he has 
obtained in his pupillage, to trace disease by its symptoms or ex- 
ternal indications, and apply remedial means to obtain and pre- 
serve a reputation worth having, either as to respectability in 
society or as to pecuniary returns. Persevering energy in the pur- 
suit of knowledge, and a continual watchfulness of the symptoms 
of disease and the effects of medical agents administered during 
life, and in examining the diseased appearances after death, are 
absolutely necessary ; and the pupil or practitioner who pursues 
such a course has nothing to fear from those who are only book- 
doctors, nor from practitioners on the human subject, who from 
reading, &c. may describe the symptoms of disease in the dining- 
room or drawing-room, but only see a sick or lame horse occa- 
sionally. 
The candidate for success in practice as a veterinary surgeon, 
who, on having obtained a diploma, blesses himself that the tur- 
moil and anxiety of study are over, will find that he has miscal- 
culated the matter, and that, instead of the race being finished, 
it is only about to begin. 
In reducing what he has learned at college to practice, he 
must be more than a “Sir Isaac” who does not soon find 
that he has much to learn, and difficulties in practice which no 
books can help him out of; or he must be so stupidly blind, as to 
be incapable of ever becoming a man of experience. 
It has been my undeviating practice from my outset to point 
out to my employers what was amiss with the patient, and, in 
vol. xiv. 4 D 
