AT NEWMARKET. 
461 
quired before he can apply for his diploma. This, however, is a 
point gained; and it will gradually, and not slowly, tell for the 
respectability of the profession. Yet the attendance, and not the 
lapse of time, should be regarded; and, beside, for those who 
have not had previous advantages—who have not lived among 
horses and cattle, or have not been connected with a veterinary 
practitioner, a twelvemonth is a sadly inadequate time—inade¬ 
quate to become acquainted with the structure and diseases of the 
horse—ridiculously so when the numerous patients of the veteri¬ 
narian are considered. Time and good sense, and strongly ex¬ 
pressed feeling, will remedy this too. 
And then the employment of that little time, has it not con¬ 
tributed likewise to the degradation of the profession ? What 
can be expected from that young man to whom the general symp¬ 
toms—the distinguishing symptoms—the circumstances which 
lead to change, utter change of treatment in different stages of 
the same disease, have never been explained, no not with regard 
to a single malady; but who has been perplexed with theories, 
ingenious or whimsical, true or absurd, stated before any fact 
has been adduced—tortured to account for every fact, but never 
as it ought to be, the result of a patient accumulation and com¬ 
parison of facts ? What can be expected from that young man 
who, instead of being taught how to discriminate between the 
various diseases of domestic quadrupeds, and to adapt his treat¬ 
ment to the peculiar character of each, is taught to lump them 
together under one common name, and to adopt one mode of 
treatment for all; to call every chest affection, inflammation of 
the lungs, and to treat it as inflammation of the lungs ; careless 
of the degree to which the really and essentially different dis¬ 
eases of the chest w ill bear depletion or purgation, abstinence or 
stimulus; and careless sometimes whether that inflammation of 
the lungs may not, in truth, be inflammation of the bowels or of 
the brain? What can be expected from him who, instead of 
suiting his treatment and his medicines to the varying state of 
his patient, has scarcely more than half a dozen drugs in his whole 
pharmacopeia, and those common and cheap^? What shall w’c 
think of that young man who is suffered to depart from the 
college not knowing how to bleed or to ball, or to rowel or 1o 
VOL. IV. 3 R 
