INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
749 
and superficial apprehension. ’A man’s knowledge of disease, 
physically speaking, is deep or shallow, according to the 
fineness of that knowledge. Without anatomy the mind has 
no materials to work upon in that faculty of thought which 
should actively accompany every case under treatment. The 
first requisite, then, the very key by which you open the door 
of veterinary science, by which you go inwards, so to speak, 
and away from superficiality and common ignorance, is dili¬ 
gent dissection. I cannot, therefore, too earnestly impress upon 
you the importance of your duties in the dissecting-room. 
The field of knowledge which is there thrown open to you is 
immense, and at first sight its very amplitude may discourage 
you. But by patient perseverance day after day, and week 
after week, you will gradually get accustomed to the multi¬ 
plicity of the objects before you ; a fresh resource of memory 
will be opened up, enabling you to retain the particulars 
which your scalpel discovers; a pleasure of discovery will 
add its zest to your labours, and you will be enabled 
to count your gains of knowledge, and to find that in a 
little time they amount to no inconsiderable quantity. Every 
lecture on anatomy to which you listen in this theatre, 
every demonstration, will be instructive to you in pro¬ 
portion to your own personal labours in the dissecting- 
room, and therefore we cannot over-estimate the import¬ 
ance of dissection; we cannot be wrong in regarding 
anatomy as the scientific basis of your knowledge of the 
veterinary art. 
I would warn you, however, that the dissecting-room is a 
place where the moral force of the student is tried by the 
circumstance that dissection is a personal service, and hence 
your individual industry in the College primarily depends 
upon your steadiness at the dissecting-table. In the lectures 
you are passive; in the practice of the College you are 
observers, or lookers-on; but dissection you must do for 
yourselves. So it is that those pupils who are of weak 
character and industry break down in the dissecting-room, 
if anywhere, and make it an arena for gossip and irre¬ 
levant amusement. I would therefore urgently request all 
those who are determined to be diligent not to tolerate any 
play or distraction in a place which ought to be studiously 
consecrated to the principles and beginnings of their profes¬ 
sional life. The practical pursuit of anatomy, although it 
may have its disagreeables in dealing with the decomposing 
parts of the animal organism, yet bear in mind it is a searching 
after truth, and as truth is pure and clear, so anatomical 
science, as a principal minister to the grand art of healing, 
