EDITORIAL. 
539 
Professor Law, in a long letter, has taken these two medical 
doctors to task, and has thoroughly exposed their ignorance and 
their stupid pretentiousness. In a few well expressed pages he has 
demonstrated their lack of knowledge of comparative pathology, 
and has made them feel (if that is within their capacity) that the 
veterinarians,whom they deliberately and wantonly insult, are their 
evident superiors in respect to the degree they have achieved in 
the scale of medical knowledge and professional skill—a degree 
which neither of them, or their confreres, who are no better en¬ 
dowed, can ever hope to reach. 
Professor Law’s challenge will, we apprehend, be issued in 
vain, but it will not be questioned that he has fixed upon them an 
ineffacable stigma of gross ignorance, if not of downright men¬ 
dacity, inasmuch as some veterinary editor, a pretended profes¬ 
sor of veterinary medicine, with some other M.D.—in New York 
received the very first public rumor of the existence of the dis¬ 
ease in Long Island in 1879. 
Instead of the bill which has received the intelligent endorse¬ 
ment of so many minds fully competent to judge in the matter, 
the notable Dr. Swinburne has unluckily succeeded in obtaining 
an amendment, by which three “ medical ” men (which we sup¬ 
pose to be a synonym for “ non-veterinarian”) are to be appointed 
to carry the law into effect. What may be the purpose of this 
we are curious to know. Is it to determine the nature of the dis¬ 
ease, or to decide whether it is or is not contagious % 
Happy amendment! happy suggestions! Probably, in due 
respect to their ability, Drs. Swinburne and Gallinger will be two 
out of the three chosen ones, in order to secure an “ intelligent ” 
and competent determination in cases of doubtful diagnosis. In 
one respect this will be a nice arrangement for Drs. S. and Gf., 
inasmuch as they will find no difficulty—having already decided 
the point—in reporting the non-contagiousness of every case, 
nolens volens , which will insure a promptness and despatch in 
their reports quite unusual and highly commendable. 
If this should be the case it will, moreover, be a good thing for 
the doctors, affording them an opportunity for the acquirement 
of some practical knowledge on the subject of contagious pleuro- 
