RECORDING CLINICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
83 
clo well to have printed in large letters in their studios as a mem¬ 
orandum of their duties to themselves, to their colleagues and to 
their profession. The paragraph reads as follows : 
%i Careful observation makes a skillful practitioner, but his 
skill dies with him. By recording his observations, he adds to 
the knowledge of his profession , and assists by his facts in build¬ 
ing up the solid edifice of pathological science .” 
How true those words are, and how powerful their mean- 
ing ! 
Deprived, as the veterinarian is, of many of the means of 
diagnosis of which the human practitioner may take advantage, 
how important it is for him to be able to refer to the works and 
the positive observations of his predecessors, to be able to recog¬ 
nize diseases, to be certain of pathological changes and correctly 
to direct his therapeutics. Indeed the question might be asked, 
what has made our pathology of domesticated animals in its vari¬ 
ous forms, whether equine, bovine, ovine, porcine and canine— 
how have our predecessors, from the works of olden 
times, to our recent and modern authors, been able to lay down 
the etiology, symptomatology, pathology and therapeutics by which 
to-day all of us and the veterinarians of the future are going to 
be able to fulfill the duties so variously assigned as physicians, 
surgeon, obstetrician, therapeutist or sanitarian. 
The answer to these questions is a simple one; it is that in 
those days, u careful observers had become skillful practitioners, 
and that, not to die with their skill, they had recorded their ob¬ 
servations to add to the knowledge of their profession and assist 
in building the solid edifice of pathological science.” 
But is our patholgy yet perfect ? Is our knowledge as positive 
as it should or might be ? Can we boast that the symptoms of 
all diseases are mastered by us ? Are we not liable to make, 
and do we not often make errors of diagnosis ? Are there not, 
among the numerous disease to which animals are subject, still 
many of which we know so little that our medical knowledge 
remains unable to detect them, or to cure, or even sometimes to 
relieve them ? 
If these queries are suggestive of facts, what are our obliga¬ 
tions, and does it not become a duty that imposes itself upon 
