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INTRODUCTORY LECTURES. 
which so many young men, eager for knowledge, press, we, 
Gentlemen, are assembled to render to the public an account of 
our labours, to bestow the accustomed rewards on those who 
have well deserved them, and to restore to our country those 
young men whose services and whose scientific attainments it 
reclaims. 
“ We may have some cause to fear, Gentlemen, that this meet- 
ing, devoted to one purpose alone, may not offer you the same 
attraction which you would find in other schools. In them, each 
of you reckons a son, a parent, or a friend ; and every word will 
recall to you the still glowing recollections of youth, and interest 
you by the retracement of the picture, always pleasing, of the 
utilities connected with letters and the arts. 
“ Our pupils, however, are, for the most part, strangers in this 
city and department ; few persons will associate themselves with 
their triumphs, or be identified with the recompense of their 
merit. Our labours are less imposing than those at other 
schools ; they are simple as the fields in which their nature and 
their usefulness are about to be developed. 
“ Nevertheless, we hope that they will not be without interest 
to those well-informed proprietors of land w'ith which our happy 
country abounds; for they comprehend all that concerns the 
preservation and improvement of domestic quadrupeds, the 
source of agricultural prosperity and national wealth. The phi- 
losophic physician will here remark the bond which so intimately 
unites the two branches of the healing art ; he will see with much 
satisfaction the means and the proceedings which he adopts in 
order to preserve the existence of the noblest and the most valua- 
ble part of animal life renewed and perpetuated in our medical 
treatment of the brute. 
“ The philosophic physician, I have said ; for there are few be- 
side that enlightened class of men who seem yet to have formed 
a proper conception of the extent and the difficulty of veterinary 
medicine. The bulk of society see only in our proceedings a 
rude art ; which the farrier can practise without preparation and 
without study. In order to dispel this error, permit me to trace 
a rapid sketch of some of the acquirements which must form the 
basis of our practice. 
“ A line of distinction had long been drawn between man and 
the inferior animals in the study of natural history. It was re- 
served for our times to unite together the links of the grand 
chain of organized beings — to bring together all the scattered 
elements; and, in a word, to create the philosophy of science. 
“ Can I speak of natural history and anatomy without recalling 
the sentiments, and often the language, of that universal genius 
