INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS 
387 
vacations the students are supposed to be serving with preceptors. 
For many years English instruction was too exclusively devoted 
to the horse, but recently much more attention has been paid to 
cattle and other animals, and laboratories for practical teaching 
are being added, which promise a greater amount of scientific 
medical education. The Veterinarian, a monthly journal, was 
established in 1828, and has continued uninterruptedly since; 
there are many veterinary books in English, but unfortunately 
too many of them are of a routine character, and better suited to 
the stable man than to the medical man. There are, however, 
numerous exceptions, and the names of Bracy Clark, Percivall, 
Williams, Fleming and others will always be honored. French, 
German and Italian books are comparatively limited in numbers, 
but are of scientific value. The oldest of veterinary journals, the 
Receuil de Medecine Veterinaire, was established in 1824, and the 
oldest German journal, the Vierteljakrschrift fur Wissenschaft- 
liche Veterindrkunde , in Vienna in 1851. The Austrian and 
Hungarian Institution teach for three years with a two years 
course for higher grade farriers. In these there is much more 
laboratory work. The magnificent new institution at Buda-Pesth 
has just been built on ample ground, and fitted with every facility 
for theoretical and practical work. At its side the Agricultural 
School is in course of construction, and many of the chairs will be 
common to both. The German schools teach for three and a 
half years, while the Belgian, Italian and French cover four 
years in their course of study. The school at Alfort, near Paris, 
is par excellence the greatest clinical school, where a hundred ani¬ 
mals can be seen each day. Berlin, Lyons, Vienna have large 
clinics and do more laboratory work. The Toulouse and Swiss 
schools, with that at Utrecht, have the greatest reputation for cattle 
practice, and at Munich special attention is given to diseases of 
the eye in the lower animals, and for this branch a journal is 
now published. 
While there have often been individual veterinary surgeons 
well known outside of their own profession, it has been within 
very recent years that we can count with pride enough scientific 
men to show a marked elevation in the standing of our colleagues. 
