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CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
pense of those of others, has done more injury to the profession 
than all the circulars that were ever sent abroad. 
I have often heard Professor Dick reprobate the concealment 
and mystery which shrouded the practice of so many. He used 
to tell us, that those who knew most of the diseases of our pa- 
tients would be our best and most attached friends ; and every 
day’s experience confirmed the truth of this. The Professor used 
to deliver a course of lectures in the winter season which was 
attended by many of the members of the Highland Agricultural 
Society spending their winter in Edinburgh. What was the 
result? On their return to their country seats, did they become 
their own veterinary surgeons, and give any encouragement to the 
groom, or blacksmith, or country cowleech ? No! but they urged 
on the agricultural associations in their respective districts — and 
almost every district in Scotland had its agricultural society — the 
propriety of attaching to themselves one or more veterinary sur- 
geons who might be within their call in cases of disease. It is in 
consequence of this that there are so many regularly educated ve- 
terinary surgeons throughout the whole of Scotland, the greater 
part of whom obtain a respectable livelihood. 
Before this, with the exception of a few contributions by Pro- 
fessor Dick, to the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, our art may 
be scarcely said to have had existence in Scotland : and now, 
from north to south, it is plentifully supplied with educated sur- 
geons. In our public libraries, also, The Veterinarian and 
other veterinary works stand, as they should, by the side of the 
publications on agriculture, and I do not think that these works 
have in the slightest degree lessened the practice of the veterinary 
surgeon, but quite the contrary. There may be a few farmers 
who depend on their own sagacity, or the knowledge of some 
quack; and when they do employ a veterinary surgeon, it is 
after all their nostrums have failed, and the patient is near to its 
long home. 
I have always thought that the less we have to do with such 
persons the better, for we are sure to be the scape-goat, laden 
with errors and almost with crimes not our own. As to the 
publication of the Veterinary Medical Association along with 
The Veter inar i an, in my opinion it is just what it should be: 
but what has become of many of the old practitioners who once 
took part in the discussions ? 
