64 CENTRAL VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
of emulation and zeal which pervade all who are connected with 
it, as well as its flourishing financial condition, falsifies any such 
prediction, and, on the contrary, leads to the inspiriting inference 
that it will continue each year to increase in strength, utility, and 
influence. Already, in one brief year, it has achieved wonders, 
and its success is perhaps unexampled in the history of societies 
in our profession. 
To each of you, individually, this success is due, but more 
especially to the office-bearers, who, with your hard-working 
secretary and treasurer, deserve thanks and commendation for 
their efforts to bring matters to this prosperous condition. 
Such, then, gentlemen, is the aspect of affairs on resuming our 
meetings for a second year, and they are certainly encouraging. 
But let us remember that they are only encouraging so far as to 
carry us on to renewed efforts. Last year, our society was too 
young, too unformed, to permit us to venture beyond a very 
elementary course of scientific business, and we dared not attempt 
to impose upon ourselves more than we could carry out with 
every prospect of perfect success. Until we had put the new 
machinery of the Society into motion, and tested its working and 
its powers, it would have been dangerous to throw upon it all the 
strain it was calculated ultimately to b^ar. Gradually we must 
be content to move, but move we must, ever forward. The year 
now commencing must see an advance on last year, and to judge 
from the past as to what may be attained in the future, we have 
every reason to predict great progress. We must keep in mind 
the words of Macaulay, when he is speaking of the New Philo¬ 
sophy :—“ A point which was yesterday invisible is its goal to¬ 
day, and will be its starting-post to-morrow/” 
The chief aim of such a society as ours is definite and impor¬ 
tant. It is to promote the science of Comparative Pathology, 
which has for its objects to elucidate the diseases of the domestic 
animals, to trace the affinities of these diseases, to seek for the 
causes upon which their development depends, to remove these 
causes, or protect the creatures from their operation, if not re¬ 
movable, as well as to preserve the lives of valuable animals when 
affected with disease, and restore them to utility by every means 
that may be devised—such is the duty this science imposes upon 
itself. And to fulfil this duty worthily, w r hat a demand there 
must be for patience, erudition, enthusiasm, and unflagging ob¬ 
servation ; indeed, the very highest mental qualities, aided by a 
knowledge of many accessory sciences, must be enlisted in this 
task. 
But, gentlemen, knowing well the abilities of those who com¬ 
pose the Society, I have no fear that the subjects undertaken will 
not be efficiently examined and discussed, or that light will not 
