THE VETERINARIAN" AS A SANITARIAN. 
371 
ORIGINAL ARTICLES. 
THE VETERINARIAN AS A SANITARIAN. 
By W. H. Hoskins, D.V.S. Philadelphia, Pa. 
(A Paper read before the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Association). 
Standing to-day on the threshold of the most remarkable 
era in the history of the science of medicine, the veterina¬ 
rian holds an anomalous position among the various lateral 
branches that go to make up the compact known as the 
science of medicine. The rejected stone of the builder has 
become at once the keystone of the arch. The once lowly 
and despised place of veterinary medicine in the column of 
science has leaped forward with startling power, to shine at 
the head, while bending around it, fall in lesser significance 
the feebler lights of our sister branches, glowing only in their 
refulgence to add luster and brightness to the main shaft, 
whose stupendous importance now leads us to bow our heads 
in deep meditation, as we gradually realize the weight of re¬ 
sponsibility now resting upon our shoulders; we seem to be 
in a maze at the very edge of the momentous cloud, that soon 
threatens to envelop us in its depths of darkness, and from 
which we must grope our way by slowly but portentous 
tread, that upon the world may be shed the munificent ben¬ 
efits of health and strength, of relief from suffering, of free¬ 
dom from bondage, whose heavy ties and demands have en¬ 
feebled and destroyed the power, in great measure, of the 
entire civilized and uncivilized nations of the earth. Our 
humble part in the world’s work, our responsibility in the 
limited individual sphere of our daily duties, is freighted with 
the gravest responsibility as sanitarians, that must make the 
conscientious and earnest worker tremble at the significence 
and import of the work he has to do, of the part he must 
contribute to the solving of weighty problems, upon which, 
to a large degree, rests the progress of the entire world, 
he little, seemingly insignificent, coincidences of the past, 
