264 
ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE 
The man of liver and lights pronounced him lame in the kidneys, 
“ one of them being lapp’d over the other.” The second medical 
gentleman said he was lame in the blather, and he would just put 
a stick up and see *. The farriers are a class of men who have 
possessed the confidence of the public (particularly in the agricul- 
tural districts) from time immemorial ; and they still cling to it 
with the grasp of dying men. Peace to their manes ! 
It is with unmingled feelings of pleasure that I turn to page 
625 of the last volume. A new light has beamed upon the pro- 
fession. It is now becoming — what it ever should have been — 
devoted to the cure and treatment of all domesticated animals. 
The great struggle is essentially over — prejudice has given way, 
and common sense has triumphed. The interests of the agricul- 
turist will now be identified with the improved education of the 
veterinary surgeon ; and he will receive his diploma with unmin- 
gled satisfaction, and fearlessly enter on the duties of his profes- 
sion, conscious that, without deception and unwarrantable expe- 
riment, he will be enabled to undertake the treatment of every 
patient with which he may be entrusted. 
This essential alteration in the duty and responsibility of the ve- 
terinary surgeon will demand that a strict attention shall be paid to 
the education of the student. The first and absolutely necessary 
change will be to lengthen the time of his attendance at the 
* Hitherto our interest has been deplorably sacrificed by the ill-placed 
confidence of the owners of cattle in the blacksmith of the parish, or illi- 
terate and conceited grooms, or stupid aud careless shopmen, or, a set of men 
infinitely more dangerous than all the rest, who, arrogating to themselves the 
style of doctors , ride about from town to town, distributing their nostrums, 
compounded of the refuse and vapid sweepings of druggists’ shops, to the 
destruction of thousands of animals, whose varied disorders they treat alike, 
neither consulting nature nor art as to the cause or the effect. 
Miserable animal ! bereft of speech, thou canst not complain, when, to 
the disease with which thou art afflicted, excruciating torments are super- 
added by the absurd and reckless treatment of such men ; who, at first sight, 
and without any investigation that can lead them to the source of thy dis- 
order, pronounce a hacknied common-place opinion on thy case, and then 
proceed to open thy veins — to lacerate thy flesh — to cauterize thy sinews — 
and drench thee with drugs, adverse, in general, to the cure which they em 
gage to perform ! 
