THE VETERINARY PROFESSION AND ITS FUTURE. 
727 
Columbia Veterinary College (now defunct) in 1857 in New 
York City. We have now in North America a large number 
of colleges, quite a few of them, I am sorry to say, of the mush¬ 
room variety. Several of the universities have established 
departments of veterinary medicine. 
The veterinary literature of this period affords striking 
evidence of the progress of the science : excellent text-books, 
manuals and treatises on every subject belonging to veterinary 
medicine are numerous, and there is an abundance of periodical 
literature. The practical and technical education of practi¬ 
tioners has, of course, been improving to a corresponding 
extent. 
Veterinary medicine has been far less exposed to the 
vagaries of theoretical doctrines and systems than human 
medicine. The explanation may perhaps be that the successful 
practise of this branch of medicine depends upon the careful 
observation of facts and the rational deductions therefrom to a 
greater extent than does human medicine. It is a medical 
eclecticism, based on practical experience and anatomico-patho¬ 
logical investigation, rarely, indeed, on philosophical or abstract 
theories. In this way veterinary science has become preemi¬ 
nently a science of observation. At times it has been slightly 
influenced by the doctrines which have influenced human 
medicine, such as those of Broussais, Rademacher, Hahnemann 
and others, but not for long. Experience of them when tested 
upon dumb, unimaginative animals soon exposed their fallacies 
and compelled their discontinuance. 
Of more importance than the cure of disease is its preven¬ 
tion, and this is now considered the most important object in 
connection with veterinary science. More especially is this 
the case with those serious disorders which depend for their 
existence upon the presence of an infecting agent, and which 
are communicable to man. 
Every advance made in human medicine affects the progress 
of veterinary medicine, and recent discoveries must in the 
end create as great a revolution in veterinary practice as in 
