16 MR. MORTON’S INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
and the cure of “ the ills that flesh is heir to” is a noble calling, yet 
does his happiness intimately blend itself with the well-being of 
the creatures that are placed below him in the scale of existence. 
Undesirable and dreary, indeed, would be his state and condition 
were he alone the occupant of this nether world. The lower animals 
contribute to his daily comforts, as well as to his luxuries, 
neither of which can be enjoyed if the former possess not health. 
From this very circumstance it will at once be seen arises the 
importance of the veterinary art. 
The day is happily gone by, the dark age has passed over, when 
the village farrier, with a clyster-pipe and bladder in one pocket, 
and a long-necked bottle and a roll of tow emerging from another, 
and brandishing his twitch as a weapon of offence and defence, is 
the only person to whom our domestic animals are entrusted. 
Men of education are, in our division of medicine as well as in the 
superior one, now sought after — -those who possess scientific know- 
ledge; since it has been ascertained that the powers of life are 
the same in man and in the brute, and that both are governed by 
the same laws and influenced by similar agents. 
It is superior knowledge that has raised the educated veteri- 
narian above the mere empiric — above him whose treatment of 
diseases is by recipes handed down from generation to generation 
as a kind of heir-loom in the family ; — of whom, if you ask the 
reason why he does so and so, he replies, “ my father did so 
before me, and his father before him, and they never failed to cure 
their patient — then why should II” while, probably, he is unac- 
quainted with the very name of the disease which he is combat- 
ting, and of the organ which is principally at fault. It is such 
persons as these who have too long usurped the place which 
should have been occupied by men of talent, and it is with them 
that you will have chiefly to contend; for, jealous of your superior 
appearance and education, they will have recourse to every mean- 
ness and falsehood in order to depreciate and to injure you. 
To this very class of men, however, we are often indebted; 
for there are to be found among them some noble exceptions to 
the degrading peculiarities of which I have spoken; men who, 
had they possessed the advantages with which you have been 
favoured, would have shone as stars in their profession, and who, 
even now, are highly esteemed, and justly so, for their sound and 
experimental knowledge of the nature and treatment of disease, 
gained by perseverance and careful observation, so that in this re- 
spect they may be safely held forth as examples for you to follow. 
I trust that here, and when you return to your homes, you will 
avail yourselves of every opportunity of improvement in the 
knowledge and practice of your profession ; and be assured that 
