622 THE EDINBURGH VETERINARY SCHOOL. 
If you are up in years, or rather elderly, relinquish all fur¬ 
ther thoughts of veterinary medicine. I am far from meaning 
to say that an adult can learn nothing; but it is well known 
that a man of mature age, who could write an article like your’s, 
and attach his name to it, is susceptible of very little intellectual 
cultivation. Ours is not a science in which balderdash, sciolism, 
and boyish egotism, often do much good : they may delude the 
ignorant; but even these are quickly undeceived by the genuine 
practitioner, while the counterfeit is deserted. Your paper is 
a hundred years behind any thing like discussion. The time has 
been in which philosophers pretended to advance science and 
reveal truth, while they were merely lavishing abuse upon each 
other ; but those days are surely gone. The babes of science, 
indeed, still continue to offer examples of babbling frivolity. 
For my own part, I wish I may never write more, if I do not 
ardently desire that the pages of The Veterinarian may 
never again be polluted by such papers as your^s and this of 
mine. 
You have been a most injudicious friend to Professor Dick. 
It is your duty, though not perhaps in your power, to relieve 
him from the awkward predicament in which you have placed 
him. He has bitterer enemies than I am, who will not scruple to 
say that it is a pity that he waited twelve months for a cham¬ 
pion, and found no better than a fool. I shall not easily enter¬ 
tain such a poor opinion of that gentleman as to believe that he 
sanctioned the publication of your remarks. If he had wanted 
defence or vindication, he has friends far more wise and worthy 
than you can ever be ; and into their hands he might have com¬ 
mitted himself, without any risk of the disgrace which you have 
unintentionally reflected upon him. I would have overcome 
more dislike than I have to Mr. Dick, and have devoted an 
extra page in enumerating his merits, and the difficulties he has 
surmounted, rather than have the public believe that the head 
of the veterinary profession in Scotland should have no more 
able advocate than Mr. A. Wilson. If I am not Mr. Dick’s 
friend, I have never been his enemy. The professors of the 
Veterinary College, and they that were my fellow pupils, can, 
if they choose, testify in what respect I held himself and his 
opinions. But if it can be shown that he has been accessory to 
the publication of Wilson’s Remarks^ I shall only regret that 
he has undergone one of those changes which charity is loath 
to observe. 
To conclude, if any respectable person will be good enough 
to inform me, publicly or privately, of the errors I have com¬ 
mitted in the ‘‘ Concise Account,” I shall do what I can to 
