J90 
1 have lately purchased a glaiidered horse, in order that I 
might subject him to the same treatment; and I confess that I 
have considerable hope of effecting a cure, and the case is going 
on in a very favourable way. 
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE VETERINARY ART. 
[As we were looking over an old Gentleman's Magazine (1790), 
we stumbled on the following plea for our profession. It is so 
excellent, that we are induced to present it to our readers.— Edit.] 
It must be a matter of no small surprise to you, and to every 
friend to science, that in a country where the other arts have 
been raised to so high a point of perfection, veterinary science 
alone, in itself so excellent, and of such extreme utility to society, 
should be neglected, and consigned to the hands of incapacity 
and ignorance. 
That the art of veterinary medicine is of such importance, I 
wish to make appear through the medium of your magazine ; not 
fearing that the public of an enlightened and judicious nation 
will readily yield to the impression of truth, and be as willing to 
vindicate this branch of knowledge also from the contempt under 
which it so unjustly labours, as those which, under their pro¬ 
tection, have been already extended to the general benefit and 
information of mankind. 
The veterinary art is a practical application of sure and sci¬ 
entific principles to the preservation of health in domestic ani- 
jnals, and to the cure of their diseases, in the same manner as 
the art of medicine applies them to the health and preservation 
of man; and the science on which this art is grounded, and 
zchich it requires for its perfect exercise,^ comprises the natural 
history, anatomy, physiology, and pathology of those animals, 
together with such portions of the vegetable and mineral king¬ 
doms as are connected with them, either in the way of food, 
ailment, or remedy. 
Such is the nature, and such the extent of veterinary medi¬ 
cine ; by which view' its excellence is sufficiently evidenced to 
those who know the importance of the art of human medicine to 
man, or know how' to estimate the value of truth and certainty 
above ignorance and error: and if our farriery, which presumes 
to represent this art, were to be tried by this test in the single 
instance of the horse, w'e should exactly find it w'anting in that 
fundamental science, which alone renders it either efficacious or 
secure. 
