606 MR. youatt’s introductory lecture. 
its branches, may be gradually dispersed over the kingdom, on 
whose skill and experience confidence may be securely placed.” 
This is w hat a veterinary school ought to be. It should em¬ 
brace every patient on which the surgeon may be called to prac ¬ 
tise ; and, except in the metropolis and large towns, his patients 
of other kinds will be more numerous than the horse. There 
are five millions of cattle, thirty millions of sheep, four millions 
of swine, and two millions of dogs to be found in our island. 
There is but one million and a half of horses for all the purposes 
of war, agriculture, commerce and pleasure. True, the horse 
is the most valuable of our domestic quadrupeds; respect¬ 
ing him the owner is most eager to seek medical advice; and 
the operation of shoeing brings him, of necessity, oftenest under 
our care: but the others, by their numbers, will give frequent em¬ 
ployment to the country veterinarian. How can he practise on 
their diseases if he has not been taught the nature and symptoms 
and treatment of these diseases? Will the most accurate horse 
knowledge avail ? What disease in the Jiorse will guide him in 
cattle to the treatment of dysentery, or inflammatory or puer¬ 
peral fever, or foul in the foot, or red-water, or affections of the 
rumen or manyplus ? or inflammatory fever, palsy, hydatids in 
the brain, inflammation of the brain, scab, rot, or foot-rot in 
sheep? or enlargement of the glands, or measles or leprosy in 
swine: or distemper or canker in the dog? 
Mr. Youatt next entered into a lengthened detail of the differ¬ 
ence in the character and treatment of the same diseases in horses, 
cattle, and other domestic animals, and the almost incredible differ¬ 
ence in the dose and the effect of the same medicine employed in 
the treatment of different animals. He also spoke of the dearth 
of information on these subjects, no veterinary surgeon having 
, written upon them, or seemed to deem them w r orthy of notice; 
and he quoted some of the absurd recipes which our books of 
cattle medicine contained. The substance of this, how r ever, had 
been given in a former lecture, inserted in The Veterinarian. 
He then proceeded. On these grounds I may, with some con¬ 
fidence, appeal to the veterinary pupil for support; for the Col¬ 
lege, whatever may be its excellence as a school, is strictly 
limited to horse-knowledge; and we have seen that no know- 
ledge of the structure and diseases of the horse can guide to the 
treatment of the diseases of cattle. There is this circumstance 
also to be taken into consideration*—that the diseases of cattle 
and sheep are more inflammatory in their character, more rapid, 
and far more fatal than those of the horse. The blood (inflam¬ 
matory fever) will carry off the animal in twelve or twenty-four 
hours. Dropping after calving (puerperal fever), of which the 
