VETERINARIAN. 
VOL. LII. 
No. 623. 
NOVEMBER, 1879. 
Fourth Series, 
No. 299. ' 
Communications and Cases 
ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
OPENING OF THE SESSION 1879-80. — INTRO- 
DUCTORY ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR T. S. 
COBBOLD, M.D., F.R.S.* 
Sir C. Paul Hunter, Bart., in the Chair. 
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,*?— Of all the duties that 
fall to the lot of professors in our medical and veterinary- 
colleges I know of none so generally distasteful to the 
teacher as that of having to deliver the opening address of 
the session. Without doubt this distaste has partly arisen 
from the notion that nothing can be said that has not already- 
been better said, perhaps, a hundred times over. There is 
another reason. Inaugural lectures are usually expected to 
partake somewhat of the character of an oration. With the 
majority of teachers this is a very cogent objection, for it 
must be confessed that comparatively few professional men 
are sufficiently gifted to meet the purely conventional require¬ 
ments of the case. In this connection it is not a little in¬ 
structive to observe that the medical school, which has set 
the example of abandoning the good practice of giving in¬ 
troductory addresses, is just that very one which could, if it 
chose, display the rarest oratorical gifts. Almost every 
school has its able speaker. Who that has listened to the 
orations of Sir James Paget and Mr. Savory can fail to have 
been charmed by their style and language; yet, perhaps, 
* This lecture treats especially of parasites in relation to veterinary 
science; incidentally referring to the Alfort veterinary school, and to cases 
of cattle poisoning by plants in Brittany. 
LII. 
54 
