304 
EDITORIAL. 
after-studies are devoted to the ehannel which his tastes have 
led him to adopt as his life-work. 
Not so with the veterinarian, who must not only make of 
himself a specialist in every department, but must include 
within his radiating information a knowledge of the diseases 
and characteristics of all domesticated animals ; and not only of 
each species of animal, but of each family of the same species. 
To illustrate these remarks, he is both physician and surgeon to 
the soliped, and included in this type of patient he must know^ 
the characteristics of the thoroughbred, the trotter, the roadster, 
the high-stepping light-harness horse, the heavier carriage horse, 
the saddler, the general purpose horse, the three-quarter trucker, 
and the heavy drafter, as well as the uncertain family of ponies. 
While a broad education in veterinary medicine will answer in 
the application of therapeutics to all, each family has its pe¬ 
culiarities, points of value and points of objection, which must 
fall within the knowledge of the successful general practicing 
veterinarian. To achieve a mastery of this large field the vet¬ 
erinarian must include that department which is certainly as 
large and as difficult as any specialty in our sister profession, 
and the prediction has often been made that in the large cities 
at least it will yet assume that dignity, and become a “ special ” 
branch of veterinary medicine. Surely the frequency and im¬ 
portance of lameness in the horses of our cities especially re¬ 
quire the closest and most intelligent study of veterinarians, 
and it is well known that some men become better diagnosti¬ 
cians than others, principally on account of a taste or a natural 
bent for a study of the defects of the locomotory apparatus. 
Added to the scope of this varied inlormation he must have ac¬ 
quired familiarity with breeding, and have become a judge of 
form and action. 
Were the veterinarian to cease at this point he could not 
hope to be equal to the demands of general practice ; for he 
must be as familiar with the diseases, breeds, characteristics, 
and traits of the dog as with the horse, and there is more dis¬ 
similarity between the two classes of patients than between man 
