IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
461 
obtaining a proper foundation for the successful practice of 
veterinary science, and most assuredly when the veterinary 
practitioner, in consequence of the extensive opportunity which 
he has , not only of examining diseased parts after death , hut 
likewise of dissecting for anatomical purposes , and more par¬ 
ticularly when all the most important discoveries , gnd on which 
almost the whole of the science respecting human practice has been 
laid , were in the first instance obtained by dissections and experi¬ 
ments made on animals ; most assuredly the veterinarian ought 
never to lose sight of this, but endeavour to make himself, in 
the first instance, fully acquainted with these most important 
subjects ; and as well as these remarks being applicable to 
the veterinary practitioner, they are also, to a certain extent, 
referable to the human; for it has been very justly noticed by 
that celebrated anatomist, Mr. J. Bell, “ Of all the lessons 
which a young man entering into our profession needs to 
learn, this is perhaps the first—that he should resist the 
fascinations of doctrines and hypotheses till he have won the 
privilege of such studies by honest labour, and a faithful pur¬ 
suit of real and useful knowledge . Of this knowledge, anatomy 
surely forms the greatest share. Anatomy, even while it is 
neglected, is universally acknowledged to be the very basis 
of all medical skill. It is by anatomy that the physician guesses 
at the seat, or causes, or consequences, of any internal dis¬ 
ease ; without anatomy the surgeon could not move one step 
in his great operations; and those theories could not even be 
conceived which so often usurp the place of that very science 
from which they should flow as probabilities and conjectures 
only, drawn from its store of facts. 
A consciousness of the high value of anatomical knowledge 
never entirely leaves the mind of the student. He begins 
with a strong conviction that this is the great study, and 
with an ardent desire to master all its difficulties : if he re¬ 
laxes in the pursuit, it is from the difficulties of the task, and 
the seduction of theories too little dependent on anatomy, 
and too easily accessible without its help. His desire for real 
knowledge revives only when the opportunity is lost, when 
he is to leave the schools of medicine, when he is to give an 
account of his studies , and with an anxious and oppressed mind, 
conscious of his ignorance in that branch which is to be received as 
the chief test of his professional skill, or when, perhaps, he feels 
a more serious and manly impression, the difficulty and im¬ 
portance of that art which he is called to practise.” 
Mr. Percivall, in his introduction to “ A Series of Elementary 
Lectures on Veterinary Science,” in drawing a comparison 
between such practitioners as have carefully studied anatomy 
VOL. xxv. 3 Q 
