ASEPSIS AND ANTISEPSIS. 
627 
More attention should be given in our veterinary schools to 
the training of students in the art, as well as the science, and 
we would not see graduates of the best schools, who are well 
educated, not able to diagnose and to put into practice what 
they have been taught, and making mistakes that are evident 
to laymen, to say nothing of good horsemen. 
In the first place, a man should not study veterinary medi¬ 
cine unless he is naturally adapted for the profession. I some¬ 
times see practitioners, who, I think to myself, ought to be behind 
the counter selling calico instead of practicing veterinary medi¬ 
cine. The fact is that a man, in order to make a good veteri¬ 
narian, should understand the habits, functions, nature and dis¬ 
position of different animals, how to go around them, to handle, 
restrain and control them. He should be a judge of a horse, 
and a good horseman in the higher sense of the term. 
If he has not the natural adaptability and these acquire¬ 
ments, he cannot be considered a qualified veterinarian. I do 
not care how much scientific and other knowledge he may have, 
or from what college or university he may have graduated, he 
is out of his element, and cannot successfully cope with the man 
with natural intuition and characteristics, other things being 
equal. 
There are many difficulties that are constantly confronting 
the veterinary practitioner that are not met with in the practice 
of human medicine. Our patients cannot tell us, in articulate 
language, anything. This fact is often referred to by laymen as 
well as by professional men. They tell us a good deal, how¬ 
ever, if we are sufficiently observant and experienced to under¬ 
stand their language. Kvery attitude, every position of head, 
body and limb, and every movement has a significance and tells 
to the trained veterinarian the nature and condition of his 
patient with just as much certainty, yes, often more certainty 
and accuracy, than the human being tells his physician of his 
symptoms and ailments. 
Another difficulty is that the commercial value of each 
patient is, as a rule, taken into consideration in determining 
