369 
STRAY PAPERS ON VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE, 
INCLUDING MEDICAL ETHICS. 
ADDRESSED TO VETERINARY STUDENTS. 
By Thomas Walton Mayer, Esq., V.S., Newcastle-under- Lyne. 
Letter II. — Part I. 
“ Omnis medicina a Deo est. Coelites delapsa non sine Dei consilio vivit 
agitque. Hinc ars nostra sine religione, vel impia vel nihil.” 
It has with truth been observed by a writer of Medical Juris- 
prudence,* that “ It is not easy to conceive the reason why the cul- 
tivation of ethics, a matter of primary importance to the success of 
medical practitioners in the commencement of their career, should 
be almost totally neglected in the medical schools of an age so 
enlightened as the present. The fact is so, however incomprehen- 
sible it may appear. It is now the custom to initiate men into the 
mysteries of medicine without the slightest allusion to the duties 
they owe each other or the public, or the difficulties to be encoun- 
tered on the commencement of their practice. Hence arise the 
frequent misunderstandings, disputes, and improper behaviour be- 
tween medical practitioners which are so disreputable and injurious 
to the dignity and interests of science.” Nor is it easy to imagine 
the reason, since so many misunderstandings and disputes have 
existed amongst the veterinary profession, that these have not 
been traced to their proper source, and, the want of mutual under- 
standing and explanation having been felt, more urgent means have 
not been devised in order to administer a remedy. This remedy 
has just been stated to you to be the cultivation of Medical Ethics. 
The due cultivation of this important branch of our subject I at 
once declare to you is absolutely necessary in order to accomplish 
those results which are expected to follow from a more extended 
inquiry into veterinary jurisprudence. It will I am sure, my friends, 
be self-evident to you that the consideration of the duties that re- 
late to yourselves — your general professional conduct, whether to 
your brethren, your employers, or your patients — is not an affair 
on which a thoughtless jest may be inflicted, a scoff or a sneer passed 
upon it — a matter which may be considered at a more convenient 
opportunity ; but the honour and dignity of that profession of which 
you are now to become members imperatively demand that you 
* Ryan’s Medical Jurisprudence, a work to which the author expresses his 
obligations. 
