764 
INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
tion; but, letting that pass, what I wish to show is how 
zealously this subject has been taken up by practical men, 
and how completely their action demonstrates that veterinary 
science is making more progress in this country than is 
generally supposed. I would that this task had fallen to the 
lot of others than myself, for to convince people nowadays it 
is not sufficient that you make one honest statement, and be 
done with it. Such is the measure of scepticism and suspi¬ 
cion that abounds, that you must add “ line upon line and 
precept upon precept” until a wholesome conviction of the 
truth is produced by the sheer weight of your unanswerable 
array of facts. 
Among the foremost of my correspondents in helminthology 
was Professor Williams, of Edinburgh, who, on the 14th of 
March, 1873, called my attention to certain nematoid worms 
infesting the walls of the intestine of a pony. At first I re¬ 
garded these parasites as new to science, but afterwards 
found that they merely represented one stage of growth in 
the life-history of the four-spined strongyle. The matter, 
however, did not rest here, for Professor Williams’s com¬ 
munication was soon followed by many others, until at 
length our efforts were supplemented and rewarded by the 
remarkable “ finds” of Mr. Rees Lloyd, of Dowlais, Glamor¬ 
ganshire. The numerous letters and specimens received 
from Mr. Lloyd, recording facts of the most interesting kind, 
enabled me to declare with certainty that in Strongylus tetra- 
canthus we had one of the most destructive parasites that 
had ever come under the notice of the scientific world. Not 
only so, Mr. Lloyd’s observations proved that we had here 
discovered one true cause of extensive equine epizooty; and, 
more than this, fatal outbreaks in other districts than the 
one thus involved were also found by him to be due to 
another and distinct form of parasitic disease. Foreign 
writers have already acknowledged the value of these dis¬ 
coveries, and thus, in at least one direction, hippopathology 
has received a new and recognised impulse. 
I have adduced the foregoing instance as fitly illustrating 
the advantage of co-operation in the promotion of veterinary 
science ; but I should be wanting in courtesy did I not also 
mention that not a few links in the chain of evidence were 
supplied by the examination of specimens sent by Mr. 
Cawthron, of Hadlow, near Tunbridge. These parasites 
were recognised by Mr. Cawthron as the real cause of wast¬ 
ing disease in one of his patients; and in the little pill-like 
masses of ftecal matter by which some of the parasites had 
surrounded themselves I recognised a provision for the final 
