INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
63 7 
ledge of a cause seems often connected by sympathy with rapid 
conceptions of cure. For this reason I regard the study of 
anatomy, the pains-taking, memory-engraving study of it, as 
of inestimable importance in practical veterinary medicine. 
It admits you to the freemasonry of the forms and functions 
of organization, and gives, as it seems to me, a right, in the 
name of conscience, to know something of cure, which the 
gazer from the outside remains without a claim to attain to. 
It shows you what can be done in surgery, and limits the 
path whereby it is done. By means of clear anatomical 
knowledge, also, a humane daring, as it were, becomes engen¬ 
dered, which simplifies and shortens operations, steadies our 
hands with the consciousness of safety, and saves our 
patients much danger and much pain. 
Again, there is general anatomy, which investigates the 
constitution of the tissues of organs; and thus seeks to carry 
the torch of science into the most fairy-like avenues of organic 
frames. I believe the man who pays a due share of attention 
to this subject—provided he cultivates the other broader sub¬ 
jects in their own great proportion—has, again, a right and 
claim to know more of disease, and to be a keener and more 
successful practitioner, than the man who pooh-poohs structural 
anatomy, and professes to practise without its aid, for, un¬ 
doubtedly, many of the changes consequent on morbid action 
take place in the more minute structures of the body. Indeed, 
it is a question whether most, if not all the so-called functional 
diseases, are not referable to a disarrangement of the elemen¬ 
tary or molecular particles of the organs they affect. To see 
those changes, even though it be through the eye of artistic 
genius, is at least to enable us to give the morbid symptoms 
with which they are associated a local habitation and a name. 
Besides, I again say that the path of incessant investigation, 
of unwearied studying of the laws of nature, leads to a 
broad arena where discovery and inventipn are imparted, 
where struggle is rewarded, and where—when the toil of the 
way is suspended for a time—perchance quite unexpectedly, 
some new light in science, spontaneously as it were, dawns 
upon the mind. Therefore, full of hope, I entreat you 
assiduously to prosecute your studies; to diligently culti¬ 
vate dissection, with a view to obtain experience and tact 
in the use of the scalpel, which you will find to be of great 
importance in assisting your surgical skill; and to lose no 
opportunity of attending post-mortem examinations, as by 
practical information thus obtained, you will be materially 
assisted in diagnosing disease, and prognosing its probable 
consequences. 
