YORKSHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
183 
hitherto done is merely as a stepping-stone to what is to be 
clone. It has been said that veterinary science is still in 
its infancy. I have long heard this statement made, but 
now it is assuredly high time that it should get out of its 
leading strings and be allowed to walk alone. Of all 
methods most likely to accomplish this, I know of none so 
well suited as the free and friendly associating together of its 
members; while, at the same time, it will prove the means 
of giving health and vigour to the growing body, and cause 
its more perfect development. We have not the least desire 
to assume the office of dictators, far less to cavil at what has 
been done. So far as it has gone we are pleased with the 
progress made, and we can look back a few years; still we 
do think that some things have been left undone. I refer 
more particularly to the twin sciences of botany and materia 
medica, as yet scarcely taught in our Alma Mater. They 
should have a more prominent place given them—a chair or 
professor of their own. I am convinced, if so be the profes¬ 
sion as a body, arising from the Provincial Veterinary 
Medical Associations hereafter uniting together, were to 
represent the desirability of this, it would be at once con¬ 
ceded. Perhaps it might be said that in this I am somewhat 
deviating. I have, however, no doubt in my own mind that 
questions of this kind will come now and then before us, 
especially when any uncertainty or doubt arises in the mind 
as to the operation of certain medicaments, and the laws that 
should govern their administration. We have much to learn 
respecting therapeutics ; nor will mere practice always enable 
us to assign satisfactorily the “ why and the wherefore” of 
tilings ; science must come to our aid. While, therefore, we 
would be grateful for what has been done for us, we do not 
hesitate to say that we expect still more to be done. At the 
same time we are not slow to perceive, and at the same time 
we also thankfully acknowledge, the promises of continued 
improvements that have been recently made at the Royal 
Veterinary College, for we believe they are calculated to 
promote our advancement. 
Hitherto I have dwelt on an honour that is mutual, one 
shared in common by us all. Allow me for a few moments 
to advert to that w 7 hich is personal, namely, your election of 
me as your first president. Why I should have been chosen 
to this proud distinction, I do not know. I owe it, I am 
aware, to your too favorable opinion of me. Nevertheless, I 
accept it with much gratification, and the few talents I 
possess shall be honestly and earnestly devoted to promote 
the best interests of this association—the only return I am 
