THE VETERINARY PROFESSION. 
115 
The National and State Governments, through their efforts to 
extirpate and prevent the spread of contagious disease, have unin¬ 
tentionally done much to advance our profession, by employing 
almost exclusively well qualified, scholarly gentlemen, of honor 
and integrity, who by their extensive associations in their official 
capacity, and undoubted usefulness to the stock owner, have fav¬ 
orably influenced the sentiment of the general public. 
The United States War Department, on the other hand, seems 
unfriendly to veterinary science, allowing a starving salary and a 
rank just below a private, all ranks above being tilled. 
We note with amusement the boast of a New York veterinary 
college that it has a lien on, or control of, the veterinary appoint- 
■HT' 
ments to.the United* States Army, and suggest that they get their 
lien copyrighted, for if all accounts be true, the position of army 
veterinarian is not one to be coveted. 
The public press, especially agricultural and live stock journals, 
has wielded a notable influence, each usually having its veterinary 
column, generally presided over by competent and gentlemanly 
veterinarians, their influence for good or evil varying with the 
men and the times. 
Heretofore, as now, these columns have been largely devoted 
to gratuitous prescriptions for cases briefly described by letter, by 
a supposed subscriber—doubtless proving in many cases of earlier 
days, when veterinarians were few, quite beneficial to the anxious 
inquirer—and has drawn public attention to the fact that there is 
a veterinary science, distinct from empiricism, (and perhaps some 
empirics have learned to spell “ veterinary ” by having seen it 
in the papers], but such a column has not been an unmixed good 
to the profession, or if it has, it is about the only purely good 
thing, except Christianity, that comes u without money and with¬ 
out price.” 
Many of these columns are now injurious and unprofessional, 
proving disastrous in various ways. Such gratuitous prescriptions 
are not considered professional by M. Ds., and why should they 
be with us ? It often puts a false estimate upon the veterinary 
editor, surrounding him with a mysterious sort of halo, which 
sometimes dazzles and leads him to false conceptions of his own 
