CORRESPONDENCE. 
819 
control or eradication of contagious diseases, some enter politics 
and become candidates for mayor, some take up meat inspec¬ 
tion or enter the army veterinary service, while 75 to 80% 
enter private or general practice. These variations in work 
tend to draw 11s apart, and it is well that there should be 
some central rallying point where we may meet on common 
ground as a fraternity. Such, is the A. V. M. A. 
Article II of its constitution reads: u The purposes and 
objects of the association are, to contribute to the diffusion of 
true science and particularly the knowledge of veterinary med¬ 
icine and surgery.” Sanitary medicine, politics, meat inspec¬ 
tion and contagious diseases are not specifically mentioned, and 
originally our programmes contained little of these, but State 
and sanitary medicine have more recently undergone such 
rapid and important development that they soon assumed a far 
more prominent place in our meetings and ere we were aware 
murmurings were heard that these were pushing aside the top¬ 
ics of interest to the general practitioner, the practice papers 
bringing up the rear end of the programme, their discussion 
was omitted for want of time and finally they w'ere read by 
title. At Nashville the general practitioners asked for sectional 
work, the sanitarians, by parliamentary technicalities, avoided 
the issue. The practitioners were on the alert at Omaha and 
injected clinics into the programme. They went to the clinics 
prior to the regular convening hour and stayed there till ready 
to go elsewhere—they held a section on clinical surgery. They 
repeated the act at New York, and had very interesting section 
work. 
Now, the sanitarians are murmuring, but the Journal hesi¬ 
tates to admit that the clinics are at the bottom of its woes, and 
tries to lay the whole blame on Dr. Berns’ clam-bake. The 
managing editor of the Journal should be frank and state edi¬ 
torially as he has done elsewhere that he disapproves of clinics 
at the meetings of the A. V. M. A. The Journal says that only 
sanitary science is sufficiently developed, has enough intelli¬ 
gence or a sufficiently important theme to undertake sectional 
work. 
More than 50% of the members present at New York would 
say that the section on clinical surgery did very satisfactory 
work last September. Other sectional work in the A. V. M. A. 
has proven more or less successful. The Association of Veteri¬ 
nary Faculties, which the JournaVs editor nursed tenderly in 
its infancy, has operated throughout its existence as a section 
