THE PLEASURE OF BEING A VETERINARIAN. 
127 
The feed was said to have been cut down to half rations. 
(?) At the time of their coining down, in all three cases, 
there was a sharp change in the weather. The weather was 
cloudy, raw, sharp and damp. In Case No. 3, there had been a 
change in the temperature of over forty degrees, in from twenty- 
six to thirty-six hours. They were all free working horses, such 
as were likely to overdo, if allowed to. I can but believe that the 
feed and weather are the two important factors together with a 
lack of proper and much needed exercise. 
THE PLEASURE OF BEING A VETERINARIAN. 
By J. C. Michener, V.S., Colmar, Pa. 
A Paper read before the Pennsylvania State Veterinary Medical Association, March 4. 
Occupation helps form character. Different callings brings 
into play and develop special faculties. 
As the business, so the man. A person may engage in a 
monotonous routine business, like a special part in a great fac¬ 
tory, to which he becomes so accustomed as to act in an automat¬ 
ical manner, and become, as it were, a part of the machinery, 
exercising scarcely more thought than the mechanism that his 
hands direct. 
It is one of the charms and advantages of our profession, that 
the practitioner must think and act for himself. 
It is pre-eminently an intellectual occupation, and one’s suc¬ 
cess is measured by his powers of observation and ability to 
determine the requirements of the manifold conditions in which 
he finds his patients. 
The practitioner soon gains a keen realization of the necessity 
of being wide awake to take in the situation and anticipate the 
conditions that will arise and be ready to meet them, as the game 
player. It is when he becomes equally fascinated and when 
every failure makes him more determined that he is on the 
road to success and honor, instead of the disaster and ruin which 
overtakes the gambler. 
As practitioners we know the difficulties encountered, the 
