670 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
influence as means increased, until it is now entitled to take 
rank side by side with any of our schools of human medicine. 
T he list of studies the pupils have to engage in so as to qualify 
themselves to act as physicians to the stable, looks almost as 
imposing as an Oxford examination paper. They have to 
give up a good part of their attention to practical anatomy, 
to physiology, to veterinary jurisprudence, and to the prin¬ 
ciples of shoeing; they have to attend post-mortem exami¬ 
nations, to note the diagnosis of disease, and to apply their 
knowledge in the wide field of clinical experience ; they have 
to attend lectures upon chemistry, and to go through a regular 
course of reading, embracing such works as Percivall’s 
e Hippopathology,’ Blaine’s 6 Veterinary Outlines/ Youatt on 
f Cattle and the Dog/ Morton’s ‘ Manual of Pharmacy/ 
Carpenter’s c Physiology/ and Quain and Sharpey’s c De¬ 
scriptive and Structural Anatomy.’ The Veterinary College 
is on intimate terms with the different medical bodies, it is aided 
b v the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and its surgeons 
hold commissions in this country and in India as servants of 
the Crown. One of the first lessons, too, taught to the 
students directly appeals to their feelings of humanity. They 
are in every respect to treat their patients with the con¬ 
sideration and gentleness which human invalids expect from 
their physician and their visiting surgeon. There is to be 
no roughness, no brutality, and, above all, the investigations 
by which a practical knowledge of disease is gained are to be 
conducted with a scrupulous regard to the tenderness—if we 
may use the term—of genuine science. The doctor who in 
modern times tends the horse during sickness is not, it will 
thus be seen, to be confounded with the ignorant farrier or 
pig-sticker of other days. He is a person of education and of 
enlightenment, whose mind has been trained by a proper course 
of education to observe and to remedy certain forms of disease, 
and who is as fairly entitled to take rank as a professional 
man as his brethren w ho follow another and a more lucrative 
branch of medicine. The object of both is the same—to al¬ 
leviate pain and to save lives which, although in different 
degrees, are of value to the general community. 
6< While the horse is thus cared for with so much tenderness 
in England, it is sad to find that in France a practice 
prevails calculated to set the example of cruelty to all who 
have the animal in any way under their direction. Were it 
not for the high authority of Professor Spooner, who stated 
the fact in his address to the students of the Veterinary 
College a few days since, we might almost hesitate to attach 
credit to the statements made by the speaker of the horrors 
