454 
VETERINARY AFFAIRS. 
ing on one class of society. Would the diffusion of veterinary 
knowledge lessen this to any material degree ? He would unhe¬ 
sitatingly answer, Yes; for when veterinary instruction deviated 
from its original and native ground, and was confined or concen¬ 
trated on the horse alone, we had opportunity to observe what 
good it could do with regard to that animal; and he would ven¬ 
ture to assert, that where twenty horses died glandered before 
the introduction of veterinary knowledge, not one was now lost. 
There was not one-twelfth of the loss from pneumonia. Grease 
was, in a manner, banished from our stables ; and that seeming 
epizootic, that horse-pest, staggers, that used to sweep away 
whole establishments, was now scarcely heard of, except in ill- 
regulated stables. He, therefore, concluded that it was fair to 
suppose, that had veterinary instruction extended, as it ought to 
have done, to all the legitimate objects of the veterinarian’s care, 
it would have produced a somewdiat similar benefit with regard 
to them all: but, at present, this extended instruction was too 
much withheld, and therefore many surgeons would not practice 
on cattle because they had not been taught the principles of 
cattle medicine. Others w'ere endeavouring,after they had com¬ 
menced their career, to make themselves acquainted with this 
shamefully-neglected division of veterinary science; but their 
learning was slowly acquired, and their employers put little con¬ 
fidence in them. No agricultural societies, south of the Tw eed, 
had their appointed veterinary surgeon; and our profession and 
the interests of the public equally suffered. 
The lecturer then went on to speak of this extended view of 
the veterinary art, as characteristic of the school of the Univer¬ 
sity. He described this, among other things, as the object which 
he and a little knot of friends at first, and now, he might say, 
the profession generally, had been labouring to accomplish; and 
he gave a description, needless here to repeat, of the principles 
and feelings which had supported him, and would to the end of 
his career. 
He next adverted to the aid which the veterinarian, when he 
had attained his proper grade in society, might render to the 
human physiologist. He spoke of the various works on physio- 
logy, and particularly of one by a gentleman then present, the 
best that he knew in any language; and he affirmed, even in the 
presence of that gentleman, that, as a science, physiology could 
be considered in few points securely based, and, he feared, in 
a great many more or less erroneously so ; —and why ? because 
the human surgeon had been either driven, or sometimes with¬ 
out justifiable motive had been led, to trace the secrets of nature 
by the dissection of living animals; and atrocities had been com- 
