ON VK'rKUINAUY ASSOCIATIONS. 
273 
labour of all. He to whom Nature has been most liberal contri¬ 
butes most; and while he whose means are more limited contributes 
less, vet no effort is isolated or lost, and there is no improvement 
the progress of which is not hastened and assured. 
See how truly the history of veterinary medicine proves this. 
At the first establishment of our schools, each individual proceed¬ 
ing from the school at w'hich he had received the elements of in¬ 
struction, stood alone—he was abandoned to himself in the locality 
in which his lot was cast. There existed no periodical through 
the medium of which he might communicate to his brethren the 
facts that presented themselves to his observation, or the ideas re¬ 
lating to those facts which arose in his mind, or in which it was 
possible for him to find the elements necessary for his onward pro¬ 
gress in the art that he was beginning to love, and on which his 
future welfare depended. Each one worked for himself alone, and 
the work of the individual was profitless to others. At that period 
the march of science was necessarily slow; but it was suddenly 
and gloriously quickened when three men, whose memory will 
ever be dearly cherished by the veterinary practitioner,—Chabert, 
Flandrin, and Huzard,—associating with one common and glorious 
object, published the “ Instructions on the Diseases of Domesti¬ 
cated Animals,” and thus produced the first result of the combined 
efforts of veterinary surgeons. That first effort inspired others, 
and the invaluable consequences of it are seen and felt at the pre¬ 
sent day in the different veterinary journals, each one of which 
deeply feels the importance and the utility of mutual co-operation, 
and labours to cherish it for their own benefit and that of the pro¬ 
fession. 
The association and mutual co-operation which it is the object of 
this address to describe and to promote will contribute much to that 
which may be called the local pathology of our art—the influence 
which the various conditions of different localities exercise on dis¬ 
ease—how great, yet how neglected, are these! The effects of 
different modes of feeding and general management, and the de¬ 
pendence of health and cure of disease depending on causes pre¬ 
viously overlooked in districts which, although bordering on each 
other, exert as dissimilar an influence as can well be imagined on 
