526 
EDITORIAL. 
progTamnie, iiiiiiiteiitiona .1 and unavoidable as it was. He 
boards his train for his far-away home in a disappointed manner, 
feeling sullen, poorly repaid and chagrined. Many others, 
possibly, had prepared themselves to take part in the discussion 
of that very paper, having through some circumstance become 
deeply interested in the subject of the thesis; but they lose both 
the pleasure and the profit of listening to the essayist and the 
opportunity to give expression to their own views. Important 
discussions on State Medicine must bear their proportion of the 
general pruning, and thus it has become a matter of the most 
delicate discrimination on the part of the officers of the associa¬ 
tion to dispatch the greatest amount of business and give the 
least amount of offense. 
We were pleased to gather the views of a large number of 
the members during the Nashville meeting, and to hear their 
personal expressions upon this subject. With few exceptions, 
they were unwilling to miss any part of the programme , State 
Medicine was as interesting and profitable to them as the practi¬ 
cal papers, and versa. They felt that the time had not 
arrived when the divorcing of any branch now included under 
the term “ veterinary science ” could be undertaken without 
serious injury being inflicted upon the association and the pro¬ 
fession ; that Hie practical veterinarian of to-day must possess a 
general knowledge of and proficiency in every collateral branch 
of the profession, and that no individual member, especially the 
general practitioner, can afford to ignore any department. 
But a solution of the vexed question imposed itself upon the 
meeting of 1897 by the urgency of the situation. It was pro¬ 
posed to the meeting that, in view of the length of the pro¬ 
gramme, simultaneous sessions (one section devoted to State 
Medicine, the other to practical subjects) should be held ; but 
the dissent was so general that a motion to hold night sessions 
prevailed unanimously, and through their instrumentality every 
member who had prepared a paper and was present had the 
opportunity to be heard ; the discussions were general and prac¬ 
tically unlimited, and a very great amount of work was disposed 
