THE TEACHING OF PRACTICAL SURGERY. 
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THE TEACHING OF PRACTICAL SURGERY. 
By W. L. Williams, V. S., Ithaca, N. Y. 
A Paper read before the New York State Veterinary Medical Society, September, 1899. 
It may sound superfluous to intimate by our title that some 
surgical teaching may be unpractical, but we feel warranted 
in retaining the term partly owing to tradition, and in part the 
existence of confirmatory facts. 
The young veterinarian frequently meets with the rebuff 
that he is wholly wanting in experience and that college teach¬ 
ing can avail nothing until practical experience has been 
added. 
Too often the criticism is just, the education received at col¬ 
lege having been unpractical, necessitating his educating him¬ 
self in a practical way before his services become acceptable to 
the public. Practical surgery is that which can best relieve 
suffering, enhance value or restore usefulness. 
Practical surgery is scientific surgery, and to teach it to re¬ 
ceptive students is to present the subject in a scientific manner 
under the best possible surroundings. 
Recent years have witnessed a great revolution in the teach¬ 
ing of sciences, especially in biology, the text-book and lecture 
having been rapidly and constantly yielding largely to the lab¬ 
oratory, a change which has so universally commended itself to 
teachers of repute, that its preeminent value over the older 
methods has passed beyond the field of discussion. 
A lecture is a word picture, perhaps illustrated by a draw¬ 
ing, model or other preparation, while the laboratory brings the 
student into lire most intimate relation possible with the object 
of his study, enabling him to observe size, form, structure and 
function for himself, and in surgical science he is led to observe 
the cause, symptoms and course of disease, and the influence of 
surgical interference upon the patient, disease or organ. 
The teaching of practical surgery requires in addition to 
the needed amount of lectures, such laboratory work as will 
