I 
VETE RINA RY IM PROVE M ENT. 35 
same manner; both will be equally welcome; but far more 
welcome will be records of interesting cases or discussions of 
important joints of theory or practice. We are arrived at that 
period of progression and reform, that our abuses must gra¬ 
dually disappear ; and vve want most of all increase of science, 
and a useful and reputable conception of the principles and 
practice of our profession. 
It will be seen by reference to our title page, that an event 
has occurred most essentially connected with the improvement 
of our profession. If, in the language which we not long ago 
quoted from Mr. Castley, “ our art seemed to sink beneath the 
dignity of collegiate science, and the elder sister appeared to 
disown the relationship, or, secretly ashamed of the Cinderella, 
scarcely acknowledged the connexion,” the University of Lon¬ 
don, better adapted than that to which he referred, to the in¬ 
creasing knowledge and liberality of the times, has admitted 
within its precincts a lecturer on veterinary medicine and sur¬ 
gery. Jt becomes not us to speak of him who will have the 
good fortune and the honour to appear as the first advocate of 
our claims to professional and public regard in this seat of 
learning ; but the competition that will ensue, and here we will 
speak, the honourable competition, while it will rouse every 
power of the new lecturer, will necessarily, and not slowly, 
bring back the old school to those principles and to that plan 
from which it ou£'ht never to have deviated. We refer to the 
language of the founders of the Veterinary College (or rather, 
we believe, we may say, of John Hunter, the life and soul of 
the undertaking), in their admirable appeal to the public when 
that seminary was first opened. “ The treatment of the diseases 
of animals being taught scientifically, men of liberal education 
will cease to look on veterinary medicine as a mean and de¬ 
grading profession. They will be convinced that its inferiority 
to human medicine consists not in the arts themselves, but in the 
relative importance of their respective subjects ; and that it de¬ 
serves to be considered as a distinguished science, occupying an 
eminent station in the scale of human knowledge.” 
Has this been the station which the veterinary art has held,. 
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