EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
409 
Doubtless, therapeutics, including materia medica and 
botany, constitute an important part of the curriculum of 
the student of Veterinary Medicine, and the foundation is 
laid for the more extended investigation of these divisions 
of science. We must, however, patiently wait for the 
building thereupon of the superstructure, for which we 
hesitate not to say we think a division of labour is desirable. 
Other schools make this a separate section, then why not 
ours ? It is a splendid field of inquiry, and a rich reward 
will be the cultivator's. But we must not be too hasty. 
‘‘ Rome was not built in a day,^^ Patience accomplishes 
much, or sees its accomplishment. The development of 
truth is gradual. To ensure this both Philosophy and 
* Science are called into requisition, but time must be allowed 
to perform its part. We live, as it were, at the confluence 
of many waters. Each stream seems more impetuous than 
its fellow, and we are oftentimes carried onward and onward 
and onward by the current, without any thought of our 
whereabouts. We do not think so deeply as we might, 
and by reflecting weigh the consequences. There is too 
much excitement, too much straining after novelDq too much 
claptrap, now-a-days. Tjet us, then, hold fast what vre 
have, and look forward with anticipation for the future, our 
ground of hope being the good already obtained. It may 
be we are not ignorant of means to be adopted to accelerate 
the possession of the object, but we repeat we have confi¬ 
dence in the directing powers, and therefore wait. Long 
since we said we were neither iconoclasts nor sciolists. 
As yet a well-arranged series of experiments, so as to 
ascertain the action of medicinal substances on the lower 
animals in health and disease, is a desideratum. These 
should be undertaken by persons in authority, and not left 
for individuals unconnected with each other to work out, 
which hitherto has been the case. Looking over the list of 
the many societies, we do not see a Therapeutical Society. 
Surely here is an almost untrodden field, and one full of 
interest. 
. We feel quite convinced that no one for a moment will 
question the importance of therapeutics as a branch of me¬ 
dical science. The treatment of disease may be said to 
