638 
Home Department. 
TIIE ORIGIN OF VETERINARY SCIENCE IN GREAT BRITAIN. 
(Continued from p. 464.) 
By Mr. R. Vines, late Demonstrator of Anatomy at the Royal 
Veterinary College. 
[From his ‘ Veterinary and Physiological Essays’ corrected from the ‘ Lancet.’] 
It has been judiciously remarked by one of our able writers 
that “Veterinary science, considered in its application to 
domestic animals, is bounded only by the sphere of their 
usefulness. It applies in a degree to every individual who 
keeps a horse or a dog, for business or recreation, and it 
comes home to the humane feelings or private interests of all 
classes of men; hut wide as this field appears , and uncultivated as 
it may he in many parts , it is not to the study, the treatment, 
and cure of animal disease alone , that this science is strictly 
confined. Second only to human medicine in actual impor¬ 
tance, it possesses considerable advantages over it , and offers 
opportunities for the cultivation of general physiology and patho¬ 
logical knowledge, and more particularly for that branch of 
science termed comparative anatomy, that are far superior to 
those which the medical practitioner can boast. 
“ There are difficulties, certainly, in the pursuit of this 
peculiar science, which, perhaps, counterbalance the advan¬ 
tages ; and having received less attention, its advancement is 
proportionately small: but it should not be forgotten that 
the ancients , as well as the moderns , who have distinguished 
themselves by important discoveries, have found them in 
dissecting the bodies of animals, having always recourse to 
comparative investigations and experiments, to extend the 
bounds of medical and surgical knowledge ; thus transplanting 
to the medical profession the honour of discoveries which were made 
in trenching upon ours. 
“ Precluded by the laws and superstitions of their times 
from examining the organisation of human bodies, the 
ancient professors of the healing art conducted their investi¬ 
gations usually on those of brutes, and thus became 
familiarised with their structure and diseases , in a greater 
degree than with those of men. Of course, their practice was 
directed to the complaints with which they were best 
