VETERINARY AFFAIRS. 453 
room and scope, and shew themselves and their art to be not un¬ 
worthy of regard. 
He spoke of the difficulties, the partial opposition, which at¬ 
tended his first admission into the University—some arising from 
the prejudices of teachers, which it had since been his constant 
endeavour to disarm, but which had been better disarmed by the 
uniform good conduct of his classes, and the gradual develop¬ 
ment of the importance of the science he taught; and when the 
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, the president of the joint facul¬ 
ties of the University, did him the honour to fill that chair on 
such an occasion, he was assured that these prejudices were dis¬ 
pelled, and that neither himself nor his class were quite despised 
in the University of London. 
Was he then satisfied ? So far as private ambition went, he 
would say that he was, and abundantly so; but when lie re¬ 
garded the importance of veterinary science, he must confess 
that he was not quite satisfied. It had not got that local habi¬ 
tation and name in this institution which it deserved : but he 
was too grateful for what was done for it to-day, farther to urge 
even a just claim; and he would only say, that when those new 
professorships were appointed to which the Dean of the Faculty 
of Arts alluded in the distribution of prizes to that branch of the 
school, one of the first of them would or should be, a Professor¬ 
ship of Agriculture, for no branch of science was more inti¬ 
mately connected with national prosperity—none with the in¬ 
terests and the happiness, and the character too, of a great pro¬ 
portion of their students in the after-period of life at least. 
They would soon find that they must give their Professor of Agri¬ 
culture a coadjutor—a Professor of Veterinary Medicine. It 
would be useless for him to tell his pupils how they might most 
successfully breed the most valuable cattle, if he did not teach 
them how to preserve those cattle in health, or to relieve them 
from disease. Indeed, he could not effectually teach them the 
principles of breeding, for neither anatomically nor physiologi¬ 
cally could he satisfactorily elucidate those points on which suc¬ 
cess in breeding mainly depended. Grateful, however, the lec¬ 
turer said, for the kindness of that day, he was willing to wait; 
for the time must come when full justice would be done to the 
veterinary art. 
When speaking of agriculture, however, he observed, that none 
but those who were intimately acquainted with the subject could 
believe how enormous was the annual loss sustained by the 
farmer, by the mortality which prevailed among their sheep and 
horned cattle. He would average it at thirteen millions of mo¬ 
ney—more than one-fourth of our annual taxation—and all fall- 
