U. S, VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION 
385 
ous as human food, or in that long list of diseases which are transmissible 
through the flesh or through contact from animal to man, usually of a very 
serious and deadly character. 
The social standing, the emoluments, the honors to the competent veteri¬ 
narian, must advance higher and higher at a rapid pace, while the incompetent, 
listless practitioner must find his room becoming more and more pinched and 
unsatisfactory. 
We have at present in America but few prominent veterinarians who are 
really accomplishing something to elevate our profession, so few that they can 
be counted almost in a moment. Let them work as hard as they may, they can 
accomplish little towards placing our profession on a level with other learned 
professions in this country, or with the veterinary profession in many other 
lands. 
We hopefully look to your society as the vital force, and to this day as the 
birthday, which shall place a whole army of earnest veterinarians in this wide 
field for observation, research and thought, who, pressing forward harmoni¬ 
ously as one man, may yet during the lives of most of us place our profession 
on an equality with the veterinary or other scientific profession in any land. 
More strongly than any words we can command, we hope you will find in 
the cordial greetings of my Western colleagues, in their earnest, respectful at¬ 
tention to your deliberations, in their willingness and anxiety to make your stay 
among us as pleasant as is possible with our imperfect hurried preparations, so 
cordial and hearty a welcome that you will remember this meeting, the West 
and Western veterinarians only with pleasure, and will find therein an irresist- 
able invitation to come among us again at an early day. 
President Michener responded to the address of welcome on 
behalf of the Association, as follows : 
Gentlemen of the Association , and particularly of the West: 
There is a great difference between responding to an ordinary speech of 
welcome, and such an one as has been tendered us by Dr. Williams, and I fear 
that I cannot fully voice the appreciation of my associates from the East. 
Dr. Williams has said so much and has uttered it so sincerely that we would 
be ungrateful indeed and unmindful of a pleasant duty if we failed to thank you 
one and all for our reception. We have some of us seen for the first time what 
is to us the great West, and I feel constrained to plagiarize a prominent man, 
and repeat that verily had Adam and Eve been placed in this section of our 
country when expelled from the Garden of Eden, they would have raised their 
eyes reverently to Heaven and thanked God for the change. 
Dr. Williams has given us a good idea of the extensive field for veterinarians 
in the West. If I can see aright it is in the West that we are to look for our 
greatest progress. It is here that disease exists upon a scale—diseases that we 
do not see at all or but seldom in the East, but which you in the West have suc¬ 
cessfully met. We may arrogantly assume, that as of old, the wise men are in 
the East, but I must insist that the veterinary profession is an exception and that 
our brightest, most enterprising men are not content to remain within the narrow 
