100 
HISTORY OF THE VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
in proportion to the bulk of the patient; the operation of simples 
is different in systems that have different laws; and there are 
many things which the human frame may safely receive in 
larg’e proportions, which must on no account be administered to 
the horse, even in the minutest. It requires the sacrifice of as 
many years to become a skilful veterinarian, as to become a 
skilful physician: the acquisition of the science and the practice 
of each is a task sufficient to engage one man’s life; and the 
contrary opinion is a portion of that ancient error, which, while 
medicine was regarded as the province of the learned and the 
few, supposed the veterinary art on a level with the most or¬ 
dinary capacities. If the veterinarian is free from the em¬ 
barrassment which the varied and violent influence of the mind 
on the human structure causes to the physician, he finds an 
abundant source of trouble and perplexity in the muteness of his 
subjects, to which the physician is not subject; which renders it 
essential that the veterinarian should add to his professional 
knowledge an active and observing mind, and a cautious, ac¬ 
curate, and penetrating judgment. 
The advantage of extending the influence of science to our 
farms, and of applying it to the preservation of our cattle, can¬ 
not be made to appear more sensibly, than by considering the 
ravages sometimes made among them by contagious and epi¬ 
zootic diseases, the virulence of which might yield to a judicious 
and scientific treatment; when the only remaining alternative, 
ruinous in its consequences to the grazier and to the public, is 
in the slaughter of the cattle. All that the practice of our hos¬ 
pitals can teach is unable to qualify for these emergencies, 
much less can adequate assistance be found in the worker of a 
country forge. It is only in the direct experience of the 
case, and studies properly adapted to it, that relief may be 
obtained. 
As the proper treatment of distempers in horses and other 
cattle is of the highest commercial as well as domestic im¬ 
portance, it is incumbent on this nation to institute and protect 
a veterinary school, in which their anatomical construction, the 
diseases to which they are subject, and the remedies proper to 
be applied, may be regularly taught. Such an institution can¬ 
not fail of becoming generally important to the nation, and 
every part of it will gradually enjoy the advantage of possessing 
enlightened practitioners, on whose care and skill they may 
securely rely. 
The treatment of the diseases of animals being taught scien¬ 
tifically, men of liberal education will cease to look on veteri¬ 
nary medicine as a mean and degrading profession. They 
