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EDITORIAL. 
EDITORIAL 
VETERINARY COLLEGES MEDICAL SOCIETIES. 
When we consider the progress that the Veterinary Profes¬ 
sion has accomplished within the last twenty years in the United 
fetates, and glance at the causes of it, we are first brought to the 
fact that its importance in public estimation has been greatly due 
to the difficulties which have been encountered in the live stock 
trade, through the presence of contagious pleuro-pneumonia, of 
trichinae, of hog cholera, etc. j and besides this, to the good 
work perseveringly carried on by the generous and deserving en¬ 
terprises embodied in the establishment of private veterinary 
schools. That to these, in great measure, is due the standing 
which veterinary medicine now maintains in this country, will be 
acknowledged by most 01 all, and that to this source also is due 
the professional acquirements and advanced qualifications now 
possessed by the young practitioners of our times. For the pub¬ 
lic all of those may be due to the lectures, to their attendance, to 
the genei al education that young men receive in their respective 
colleges. 1 heie is no doubt that didactic and clinical lectures do 
much for thorough education—that attendance in the dissecting- 
room, on the clinics, and on patients in the hospital wards, have 
much to do in that direction. But there is also another method 
of education which is perhaps ignored by some, or overlooked in 
its importance, and that is the benefit which is derived by the 
students from the College Medical Society. 
In many medical schools this is a society composed of the 
students, in which advanced and senior students meet, read and 
discuss papers for their own improvement. There is no doubt 
that much benefit is derived in this way by those who attend. 
The papers which are read by the speaker of the day of meeting 
often show much ability, containing a large amount of careful 
thought, labor and research. We have at times published the 
essays thus coming from the pens of students at the American 
Veterinary College, and it is with pleasure that we print one to 
day from the Ontario Veterinary College. In these papers, and 
