12 
MU. MORTON’S INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
tion to lecture on the science of general chemistry. You have the 
privilege elsewhere of listening to lectures on this more difficult 
but highly important division of our subject, and my remarks, if 
you please, may be considered as subsidiary to them. The time, 
however, will come, and I shall hail it with delight, when this too 
will be considered necessary; for why should not the education of 
the student of veterinary medicine be as comprehensive as that of 
the practitioner of human surgery 1 More especially would I say, 
that those divisions of chemistry which are connected with agricul- 
ture should be taught, for the veterinary surgeon is necessarily 
much thrown into the society of the agriculturist ; and from 
the soil, I had almost said, spring many of the diseases to which 
his patients are liable ; at all events, the herbage of the farm yields 
them food, and often medicine, and too frequently is the source of 
disease. With every thing connected with this he should there- 
fore be conversant. He should be able to avail himself of every 
beneficial agency, and to counteract every malignant one. Here 
the science of chemistry will be highly useful, although it may 
not wholly unfold every mysterious operation. This I have long 
viewed as a division of science fraught with hitherto unappreciated 
advantage to the veterinary art, as well as intimately connected 
■with the public weal. The union of these important branches of 
instruction is perfectly natural, and consonant with our best and 
most ardent wishes. Events are now transpiring that may lead to 
its accomplishment, and my sincere wish is that that union may be 
speedily perfected. 
At present, my aim will be to communicate to you such infor- 
mation as the state of veterinary science demands, and the branch 
of chemistry to which your attention will be directed is that con- 
nected with medicine. One reason for my doing so is, that the 
period devoted by you to study at the College is limited — too much 
so indeed : yet during it you are required to become, and should be 
made conversant with, those principles, the application of which, in 
after-life, will conduce, it is to be hoped, both to your honour and 
your profit. The foundation thus laid, may be safely and easily 
built upon, and the superstructure will afford the highest gratifica- 
tion which the human mind can enjoy. 
It is sometimes pleasing to trace effects to their causes, or, as the 
simile may apply here, occasionally in our journey to look back to 
the spot whence we started, and to measure the rapidity and 
the extent of our progress. Some persons may be inclined to ask, 
What induced me to attempt to give lectures on these subjects. I 
reply, that I saw their importance, and the disadvantages under 
which the student of veterinary medicine laboured from their being 
withheld. The task was first undertaken when, in the late London 
