626 
MR. SPOONER’S INTRODUCTORY LECTURE 
first meeting of the Veterinary Medical Association in the 
Session 1838-9. It was an earnest appeal, and one that will 
make its due impression, to the kindness and candour and 
support of his fellow-practitioners. It was that which a man 
who feels all the importance of the new, and difficult, and 
extensive and boundless inquiry which he was about to insti¬ 
tute would attempt. It will not be made in vain, but the 
good wishes of every honest heart will be with him. 
We trust that we shall be enabled often to allude to parti¬ 
cular portions of his Lectures, and that, at no distant period,— 
probably in the course of another year,—we shall be permitted 
to give a continuous course of them.—Y.] 
‘‘On looking around me, and finding that my present auditory 
consists principally of gentlemen whose countenances were fami¬ 
liar to me when I was engaged in delivering other lectures, and 
of those who are just commencing the study of the veterinary 
art, I feel that it might be well presumed that I should be able 
to address you with a portion of that confidence which is event¬ 
ually gained by the practised teacher; or, at least, that I should 
be divested of that trepidation which, while it is painful both to 
the auditor and the lecturer, renders the latter totally unfit to 
do justice to the task which he has undertaken : yet believe me, 
that if there ever was a time when I was compelled to throw my¬ 
self on your kind indulgence, it is now. I have presumed to 
come before you in a far different character from that in which I 
have hitherto appeared,—no longer as a teacher of the anatomy 
and physiology of the horse alone—although I was then fully 
aware of the extent and the difiiculty of my subject, and of my 
own incompetence—but venturing on a wider, a nobler, an almost 
untrodden field of investigation, the anatomy and physiology of 
the ox, the sheep, the swine, the dog, in fact, of every domes¬ 
ticated animal. You will not doubt me when I say that I con¬ 
template the task which I have undertaken with a degree of tre¬ 
pidation which almost unmans me. 
“ I know not whether these feelings are increased, or whether I 
ought not to feel encouraged and flattered, when I make my first 
essay in the presence of one who almost alone has ventured to 
tread this path, and has successfully trodden it—wdiom I regard 
as my former and respected preceptor, and whom I can now 
challenge as my sincere and valued friend. I am, indeed, thank¬ 
ful and delighted to see him here on this my first day of trial. 
“ There is another gentleman whom I have long proudly classed 
among my choicest friends, and who has done much for the vete¬ 
rinary art—whose lectures are essentially connected with the pre- 
