EDITORIAL. 
293 
his elevation to the office of Director over one of the most im¬ 
portant veterinary schools in Europe, we see a guarantee and a 
promise of a new impulse to the cause of veterinary science in 
France, and therefore in the world. 
Good Example from America Followed in Europe. —Our 
German exchanges have brought us the intelligence of the eleva¬ 
tion, by Imperial decree, of the Veterinary School of Berlin to 
the rank of a University, with our excellent friend Professor Mul¬ 
ler as Hector. 
This is an interesting item, and involves a fact quite confirma¬ 
tory, and so far highly flattering, of the American view of the 
estimation to which veterinary science is entitled, inasmuch as in 
taking the step referred to, the Imperial Government of Germany 
has merely followed an established American precedent. For 
years the Universities of the United States have maintained regu¬ 
lar veterinary departments, and those of Cornell at Ithaca, in 
New York, and of Harvard in Boston, with that of the Pennsyl¬ 
vania University in Philadelphia, have illustrated the apprecia¬ 
tion which veterinary studies and practice have long since reached 
in this country. 
Age-telling in Old Animals. —Dr. Miller’s letter shows, in 
his own language, “ how difficult the test of age-telling in horses 
is, at timesand yet a careful consideration of his letter shows 
that the only important difference of opinion existing among the 
twelve gentlemen by whom the mouth of the old mare was ex¬ 
amined, occurred in respect to the period between “ about six¬ 
teen” and above twenty-one. The characters of old age after 
twenty-one are very uncertain, and, to quote the expression of a 
puzzled student required to give the age of an old subject, about 
to be destroyed for dissection, the greater part of them may be 
said to be “ beyond the dentition table” And for this reason, 
perhaps, the nine gentlemen who made the old mare above twenty- 
one were all as nearly right as could be expected of persons 
obliged to obtain their knowledge exclusively u out of the mare’s 
own mouth.” To determine whether an animal is “ sixteen years 
old or about,” is comparatively a much easier task. But again, 
when the many causes that assist in altering the regular wearing 
of the teeth are taken into consideration, one need not be sur- 
