INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
617 
The limitation and even extinction of epizootics may best 
be looked for, in an obedience to the general laws of nature ; 
for epizootics coming as general influences, should by general 
influences be met. You will therefore inscribe hygiene on 
the tablet of your memories ; and when you go out into 
practice, cast one eye on your patient, and another upon his 
habitation, and see if he be half suffocated by being huddled 
up with other horses, in a miserably low and ill-ventilated 
stable, the air of which is necessarily hot, foul, and op- 
pressive ; or, in a word, if his disease be not either caused, 
or aggravated by some ill-conditioned state of his quarters. 
By this hygienic investigation you will be materially assisted 
in the medical treatment of the case, and be enabled to form 
a correct prognosis ; and when dealing with a respectable 
and a sensible proprietor, you may impart information to him 
which will greatly tend to the comfort, and preserve the 
health, of his animals. 
When one looks at the manner in which our domesticated 
animals have hitherto been treated in a hygienic point of 
view, the wonder is, that epizootics and other pestilences 
have not committed ten-fold more ravages than they have 
done. Stables adjacent to, and under, human dwellings, with 
scarcely a breath of air to vivify, or a gleam of light to en- 
liven their prevailing darkness : styes placed under cottage 
windows, and cow-houses in which cows are packed almost 
to suffocation, have been tolerated from time immemorial. 
What must be the condition of the atmosphere in such 
places? what the state of the milk and bacon produced? 
By investigating these important matters, and acting ac- 
cordingly, you will co-operate with the movement of the age, 
and do your part as professional men in the new field of 
sanitary improvement and conservation of public health. This 
too, will unite you by a new and strong tie to the best men in 
the medical profession, an association always to be courted by 
you, since to that profession you stand in a peculiar relation- 
ship of brotherhood. As I could wish that all our medical 
brethren had some knowledge of veterinary science, and of 
the anatomy and physiology of the lower animals, so I need 
scarcely express a hope, that you will also obtain an insight 
into the corresponding sciences in the human subject. 
The text books of physiology are common to both the 
sciences ; the rules of hygiene, and the principles of medical 
practice, are likewise common to both ; and you will find, I 
am sure, your firmest friends among the enlightened medical 
men of the district in which you may be located. 
I have now touched upon a few subjects which are more 
xxxi. 82 
