THE PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 
77 
to judge what is the peculiar disease under which the brute 
labours than is generally required in human medicine, from the 
circumstance that our patients cannot express in words what they 
feel; and although it requires as liberal an education and as 
extended an induction into the principles and practice of medi¬ 
cine and surgery, yet have we not been looked upon as little 
more than the companions of stable-men, and scarcely a grade 
above them in society ? Why ? Was it because that which we 
practised was not a science? Oh, no! It was, because the 
members of our profession either knew its details imperfectly, or 
had lost their character and respectability. On casting our eyes 
over the veterinary world at this moment, although I might point 
out many bright examples of men who raise the character of the 
profession by the honourable conduct and great talent which they 
exhibit, how many more could I not point out by whom the cha¬ 
racter of the profession is sullied and lowered by the loss of all 
respectability founded on honourable conduct; and, either with 
or without professional skill, distinguished in the world only as 
the frequenters of taverns and the associates of blackguards? 
Can we expect our profession to rise when such is the conduct of 
too great a proportion of its members? No : and we may pro¬ 
bably find in places where such instances as these have been 
found, a farrier or cow-leech, distinguished in his w'alk through life 
by the title of a respectable man, preferred before the veterinary 
surgeon. Oh, that men were wise, and that they would for 
their own sakes, and for the sake of the profession, consider these 
things. 
[To he continued,] 
THE ACQUISITION OR THE LOSS OF PURE BLOOD 
IN THE BREEDING OF THE HORSE. 
[We extract the substance of this essay on account of the 
singularity of its mode of reasoning, and the importance of the 
truths which it develops. It is extracted from Le Journal 
des Haras, a French sporting periodical, edited by Le Comte 
de Montendre, and which is rapidly increasing in respectability 
and value.] 
Many persons who are practically occupied in the breeding of 
the horse, little familiar with the language of scientific men, and 
having a mere superficial knowledge of the difl'erent breeds, and 
the laws which govern their origin and their ])reservation, know 
not how to determine the increase or loss of pure blood which' 
VOL. XI. M 
