290 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
evaporating the solution to dryness, he obtained an almost 
colourless varnish, consisting of a scaly mass, which was not in 
the least degree crystalline. M. Robiquet subjected his sub¬ 
stance, which he called aloetine, to analysis, and obtained the 
following result:— 
8 C zr 27.7 per cent. 
14 H — 10.8 “ 
10 O — 6.15 “ 
100.0 
It is plain, therefore, that M. E. Robiquet’s aloetine, if it really 
is a definite organic principle, which I very much question, is 
certainly a very different substance from the aloine which has 
formed the subject of the present notice. 
Pharmaceutical Journal, April 1852. 
THE VETERINARIAN, MAY 1, 1852. 
Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.—C icero. 
Our correspondents have visited us this month in rather 
formidable number. Among them will be found three army 
veterinary surgeons; a circumstance we would fain hail as a 
presage of better acquaintance than has been wont to exist be¬ 
tween us and our military brethren. We feel quite sure that 
they are as desirous as we are that our common profession 
should not suffer for want of any support from its members; and 
we can vouch, we think, for professional zeal being no less 
alive in their breasts than in those of veterinary civilians. 
Veterinary surgeons serving in the army do not enjoy the same 
ample range for observation as is spread out before most private 
practitioners. By way of compensation, however, they have 
more leisure time on their hands to think and make the most of 
what they do happen to meet with ; and we are of opinion that, 
though the cases for observation be few, yet providing they be 
faithfully and minutely recorded, and afterwards thoroughly 
digested in the mind of the practitioner, they will be found to 
afford more material for improvement and discovery than will 
be derived from numbers passing crowdingly before the ob¬ 
servation, and necessarily fleetingly through the mind : as days 
and months roll on, and fresh images or cases present them¬ 
selves, so weak and faint do former impressions gradually 
become, that in after years they will be found, in any substantial 
or useful form, to elude recollection altogether. 
The three milito-veterinary communications we are this 
month favoured with, are on subjects of the first import to us— 
castration and shoeing. Mr. Hurford, who has, as veterinary 
surgeon to the King’s Hussars, spent some dozen years in India 
