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INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF F. W. SKAIFE. 
public will be able to discriminate between the old horse doctor and the modern veterinary 
surgeon ; still time will tell.” 
Gentlemen, I need hardly say that this is a very absurd arti¬ 
cle, and one that needs very little refutation. Yet it shows that 
men will come here from the East who are absolutely incapable 
of recognizing the fact that there are as good practitioners here 
as can be found in America. Silence is the only way to treat 
an article of this kind ; that is with the contempt it deserves. 
Yet this same article brings to my mind a few matters which 
might easily be remedied in our every-day practice. Take, for 
instance, the matter of dispensing medicines. Many members of 
the profession, with whom I had dealings in the East, dispense 
their medicines and send them out in wine, beer and sauce bot¬ 
tles, some of which are clean, others fairly clean, and others not 
fit to hold medicines or lotions at all. It looks particularly nice, 
for instance, for a lady to receive a bottle of medicine for a pet 
dog, stamped all over with “ Worcestershire Sauce,” and over 
this, or some part of it the label, sometimes gorgeous, of the 
lucky veterinary man sending out the medicine. The chemist 
who dispenses veterinary medicine, and there are many, is wise 
enough to send it out in good shape ; so also is the patent-medi¬ 
cine man. Again, how often are powders sent out wrapped in 
old newspapers, and looking more as if they had come out of 
some second-rate candy shop than from the establishment of a 
professional man. Ointments and dog pills again are sent out 
in the cheapest and commonest of chip boxes. Now the chip 
box is a most useful article to the veterinarian, but they are to¬ 
tally unfitted to send out ointments in, unless those that are to 
be used immediately. Neat and clean dispensing is just as im¬ 
portant to the veterinary surgeon as to the doctor and chemist, 
and I feel convinced that there would be nothing like so 
much grumbling in paying for medicine if we would but con¬ 
sider what a remarkably long way appearance goes. 
There is yet another very important point, which certainly a 
large proportion of the profession in this country miss, and that 
is not putting sufficient value on instruments. I will illustrate 
