INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 609 
worse than your beginning — for all men begin in ignorance, 
but a vicious man ends in blank despair. 
I do not forget that I am addressing a threefold audience ; 
and that my hearers consist of noviciate pupils, senior pupils, 
and those who are members and bright ornaments of our 
common profession. I feel assured that the latter will agree 
with me when I say that if the sentiments I have uttered 
are not applicable to every one of us, they are nevertheless 
important to all, and that at least they have not been sug- 
gested by that enemy of mankind — flattery. May I add 
that I sincerely hope we shall ever be supported by those 
professional friends who on these days of inauguration gene- 
rally come among us, and who now honour me with their 
presence. 
I must now say a few words respecting the curriculum of 
your studies, which embraces many subjects, but which, with 
a careful management of your time, you will easily master, 
imbibing all the seemingly perplexing details which you 
are required to understand. 1 think I am justified in assert- 
ing that anatomy and physiology are the alphabet and the 
grammar of veterinary medicine. Is it worth while to say 
a word upon the importance of the cultivation of these 
sciences? Perhaps it is; because you may say, as in fact 
has often been said, and still oftener thought, that as men 
can speak correctly without a scientific knowledge of gram- 
mar, so veterinary surgeons may practice efficiently without 
a knowledge of anatomy — in short, that good empirics are 
successful practitioners. 
Look to operative veterinary surgery, and then it is 
obvious that nothing but a knowledge of the parts can 
enable any one to be a good and safe operator ; and who 
shall say how much of the practice of surgery may fall to 
the lot of any of you, what parts of the body you may 
have thus to deal with, or in what direction out of sight 
your knife may have to penetrate ? Therefore, on the 
ground of surgery alone, a pretty general cultivation of 
anatomical knowledge will be demanded. But much more 
can be said for a prosecution of anatomy than that the 
knowledge of it guides the operator’s knife with certainty 
and safety. I maintain that it guides medical thought, just 
as much as it does surgical steel. Granting that many men, 
knowfing far less than butchers of the location of organs, 
have made remarkable cures, extraordinary hits ; and have 
what may be called an inherent instinct for divining diseases, 
and I think it w r ould be v 7 rong to assert that no such persons 
exist — yet who can count upon being thus gifted, or on a 
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