206 
LIVERPOOL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
already we can see unmistakeable evidence of laudable aspirations 
and of progress in professional knowledge. I shall now more espe¬ 
cially refer to that noble and enduring monument—the National 
Veterinary Benevolent Society, and secondly to the treatment of 
tetanus, laminitis, and canker, three of the most dreadful maladies 
we are called upon to contend with. Is not this society an earnest 
of much more that associations can do ? Thus it may be said that 
already have these associations held a beacon aloft to light the 
profession in the path of progress. Let us endeavour to give our 
profession that impulse which will carry it on for ever. Allow 
me, in all earnestness, to impress this truth upon your minds, 
that our day of opportunity will soon be passed. “ Let us live 
whilst we live,” by promulgating higher and broader views of duty ; 
for, be it remembered, that whilst we are associating together 
for this purpose we are ourselves receiving (almost unconsciously) 
impressions for our own benefit. Our object and resolve should 
be to disseminate information broadcast—to indoctrinate the pro¬ 
fession. No knowledge is really worthless—no honest search for 
it in vain. It is the man who pushes energetically and cheer¬ 
fully forward that reaps the reward of a well-spent life. Let us be 
anxious to so live as to be missed when we die. One energetic 
attempt is worth a thousand aspirations. We should count time by 
beats. He lives most who does most, thinks most and acts best. The 
man who will not execute his resolutions when they are fresh upon 
him can have no hope for them afterwards; they will be lost, dis¬ 
sipated, and stifled, in the hurry and scurry of the world, or 
swamped in the slough of indolence. 
The man who keeps himself aloof from these associations must 
be a man of perverted sympathies. He is imprisoned within him¬ 
self by reason of his egotism. Like an animal, he stands aloof; 
he is solitary in any company, and prefers keeping himself to him¬ 
self. However much we may regret the amount of mind-power which 
is, as it were, palsied and lost, still he is himself the greatest loser 
thereby. His predilection to exclusiveness deprives him of access 
to those means of acquiring that peculiar knowledge which, of all 
knowledge, is the most useful, and which is alone derived from the 
school of experience ; he misses the greatest opportunity ever offered 
to him of improvement and utility; he contents himself with the same 
work, the same materials (it may be they are antiquated) to work with 
and to work upon ; there is a sameness of impression in every recur¬ 
ring case, the same thought comes back again upon him; the same 
treatment is adopted year after year; all his calculations and investi¬ 
gations are instituted and revolved in silence ; no companionship, 
or only very limited with his professional brethren, with whom to 
interchange thought and refresh memory. There is no effort to get 
out of the old time-worn groove. The motives which generally actuate 
men in keeping themselves aloof are often found in the dread of 
committing themselves before others. In others it is attributable 
to an instinctive love of the art of concealment. In others, again, 
it is referable to a naturally unsocial nature, a pure indolence, a 
