6 
EDITORIAL. 
is the one which suffers the most. And as veterinary science 
progresses, its interests seetn also doomed to suffer in the same 
manner. 
The evil has indeed reached to such an .extent that it seems 
to us that the time has come when it has become the duty of all 
regular practitioners to look carefully to their interests and those 
of their patrons and to guard them vigilantly against the dangers 
arising from the tricks and pretentions of a new class of quacks 
and impostors. The new enemy against whom the profession are 
called to make an earnest stand and to wage mortal combat, is 
the traveling veterinarian, sometimes styling himself a “veter¬ 
inary student,” and at others a “regular graduate,” and perhaps 
covering himself with the disguise of an alumnus of some repu¬ 
table veterinary college. This new plague, against which the 
veterinarian of education is doomed to fight, is ordinarily a man 
more or less familiar with animals, and who may in some cases 
seem to possess a little smattering of information, or if he lias 
none he pretends it by the exhibition of an array of a few books, 
very often from obsolete and refuted authors; he is more or less 
fluent and “smart;” he delivei'S lectures'^ and as we are informed, 
as to one specimen, by one of our correspondents, “ awakens a 
considerable interest in this branch.” 
Our friends must look out for these new peddlers of science, 
which commodity they sell at quite too high a price, however low 
their financial terms may seem to be. 
The best, if not the only way in which their bad influence 
can be overcome is the careful scrutiny by the authorized and per¬ 
manent veterinary societies, of all questionable claims, and the 
enforcement of the laws (where that is practicable), which we 
are glad to be able to say are in existence, as the fruit of a com¬ 
mendable intelligence existing in some few of the States of the 
Union, for the protection and regulation of veterinary medicine. 
That several States are now enjoying the benefits of these laws 
is a cause for congratulation, and we have a strong hope that in 
a time not remote, every commonwealth in the Union will be 
similarly priviledgcd. 
With ample protection like tins, the veterinarian interest 
