112 
EDITORIAL. 
publications, not alone those directly bearing on your own 
particular profession of science, but on all collateral subjects. 
There is no profession which requires in its members so varied 
a store of general knowledge as does yours. 
In the daily walks of life you will come in contact with all 
classes of society, and all degrees of rank and station. You 
will be expected to have a general knowledge more or less 
extensive, and be expected to engage in intelligent conversa¬ 
tion on almost every conceivable subject which happens to be 
of particular interest to each special client. Thus, the ad¬ 
vanced farmer leads you into discussions on “ Silos,” on feed¬ 
ing standards, the relative merits of this or that breed of cat¬ 
tle, horses, sheep or swine. The sporting man imagines that 
you should know all winners and pedigrees of noted horses. 
The politician expects you to be thoroughly conversant with 
the bills before the House, and will be surprised if you admit 
that you do not wade through Hansard regularly. 
It is your duty, therefore, to be a student of everything 
around you ; be observant, and gather information from every 
source possible. Make it a habit, on every occasion when you 
are asked for information which you cannot impart from want 
of knowledge, note it down, and go to your library and inform 
yourselves of it for future use. So in your practice acquire a 
habit of noting cases, record every case of more than passing 
interest, and study the subject carefully, read every available 
standard author on it, and in the light of knowledge so ob¬ 
tained, applied to the case under observation, you will soon 
become masters of your profession. 
Never miss an opportunity of making a post-mortem ex- 
amination; nothing aids a man so much in making a correct 
diagnosis as the repeated corrections and errors disclosed by 
a post-mortem examination. Never waste a pathological spec¬ 
imen ; think how much good others may gain who succeed 
you as students of comparative medicine, from even one speci¬ 
men, accompanied by a carefully recorded history. Museum 
specimens, accompanied by histories, are of great service in 
illustrating didactic lectures. 
In your practice acquire the habit of careful clinical inspec- 
