STOCK FARM VETERINARY PRACTICE. 
103 
basis for original observation. They cannot fail to observe the 
evolutionary modifications brought about by any change of en¬ 
vironment, the climatic and geographical variations, change of 
pasturage, and water, also the imposing characteristic traits of 
heredity, atavism, temperament, etc. The sum total of these 
opportunities and observations also constitute the school from 
which the intelligent stock-owner and breeder learns his first 
and probably best lessons and from which he soon learns to 
distinguish the differences between or departure from a normal 
healthy condition to that state which is characterized as sickness 
or disease. The peculiar nature of the sickness or disease may 
and generally does outrange his limit of comprehension, buUthe 
manifest symptoms which distinguish the unhealthy from the 
healthy condition are always more or less apparent to him. 
4. Non-professional Stock-farm Veterinary Practice .—To 
the conditions just referred to above are also traceable the great 
inducements which a large number of stock-owners and breed¬ 
ers seemingly appreciate as falling within their sphere of duty 
to enter the arena of pathology, therapeutics, etc., under the 
guise of “ non-professional.” In a vast majority of cases the 
results of such ventures are perhaps only too well known and 
the bitterness of the experience not soon forgotten by the ven¬ 
turer. 
5. Opportunities for Observation by the Professional Stu¬ 
dent. —All the opportunities which present themselves to the 
mind of the stock-farm owner and breeder are, with still greater 
possibilities, open to the professional student who is capable of 
utilizing his powers for observation in a systematic and regular 
manner, or in a single word, scientifically. From a previous 
knowledge of the several scientific theories relating to those 
conditions for which the stock-farm offers the very best field for 
practical observation, he soon realizes that the seemingly tedious 
and unpopular, and to some extent useless and burdensome the¬ 
oretical ideas of the class and lecture room reduce themselves to 
practical applicability with a charming exactness. He appre¬ 
ciates how nature, with subtle plasticity gradually and with a 
