THK VETERINARY SURGP:ON. 
103 
useful associate, and often his services would be indispensable. 
Can it be doubted that one of the first and most determined ob¬ 
jects of this noble society will be, to obtain for their cattle and 
sheep, unrivalled in every country of the world, an immunity from 
some of the diseases by which thousands of the one and millions 
of the other are now swept away? 
Will they find in the veterinary surgeon an associate capable 
of accomplishing these important purposes ? Has the principal 
veterinary school been conducted with a view to their accomplish¬ 
ment, or so as to afford the most distant hope that it may be ef¬ 
fected ? Has—alluding to the beautiful paper of Mr. Mayer, in 
the present number—has the system of our education been suffi¬ 
ciently carried out to diffuse that extent of real veterinary know¬ 
ledge which is absolutely necessary for the interests and welfare 
of the science? Most certainly not. He who now practises on 
the diseases of cattle and sheep as well as the horse, as almost 
every country veterinarian is compelled to do, has either applied 
the knowledge he had acquired of the horse to the treatment 
of other animals; or adopted, with certain improvements, the 
opinions of his forefathers ; or gleaned here and there from the 
various periodicals and other publications which, fortunately for 
him, have lately appeared; or gone to other schools, or attended 
other lectures; or submitted for awhile to a course of self-degra¬ 
dation and blundering practice which he is ashamed to think of. 
Is this the way in which the veterinary surgeon is to accept the 
proffered alliance of the agriculturist ? or, while this state of 
things exists, will that alliance be proffered at all ? 
What, then, is to be done?—Revert to the original constitution 
of the Veterinary College, which by some means, useless now to 
inquire into, has been sadly departed from, but never abrogated— 
which is still the law, but not at all the practice, of the place. 
The grand object of the institution has been, and is, to form a 
school of veterinary science, in which the anatomical structure of 
quadrupeds of all kinds, horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, &c., the dis¬ 
eases to which they are subject, and the remedies pro|)er to be 
applied, might be taught; in order that by this means enlightened 
practitioners of liberal education, and whose whole study has been 
