374 
Correspondence, 
“ It is feared that the establishment of a National Bureau out ot these ele¬ 
ments ■would produce eudless quarrelling, without receiving any valuable 
results.” 
When unusual power is developed in the hands of one man 
from a concatenation of circumstances that are but in part de¬ 
pendent upon that individual’s efforts, it becomes a weapon dan¬ 
gerous in an inverse ratio to the sense of justice with which he 
employs it. This control of power is usually sometimes im¬ 
perceptibly attained by the editor of a widely circulated paper, 
and the influence exercised by his expression of opinion is dispro¬ 
portionate to its real value. A wilful or unguarded misstatement 
may under these circumstances result in irreparable injury, simply 
from an inability upon the part of the sufferer to reach with suc¬ 
cessful contradiction, all the channels that have been contaminated 
by statements coming from an assumed respectable and trust¬ 
worthy source. When such injustice is done through want of 
forethought, the greatest reparation that can be rendered is en¬ 
tirely within the control of the editor, wdiile that which is irre¬ 
parable can be forgiven by the injured when he learns there was 
an absence of motive ; but when the editor of a scientific journal 
designedly stoops to malign a sister science, simply because her 
votaries are, as yet, numerically weak, it exhibits a development 
of unwarrantable bigotry that is a disgrace to an enlightened 
country in this period of the nineteenth century. 
That the Medical Record possesses the power to render strong, 
if not successful opposition to any measure that may relate to 
things medical, cannot be denied ; and that its remarks, quoted 
above, were intended to cast opprobium on the veterinary pro¬ 
fession, seems equally as apparent. 
What the necessity for such injustice may be, does not seem 
apparent, nor is there, so far as outsiders can comprehend, any 
worthy object to be attained. The veterinary profession can , 
must and will eventually reach its rightful position, inferior to no 
other, and it now meets with an opposition sufficiently difficult to 
be overcome, in the prejudice which affects the minds of the 
general public from their lack of knowledge of its importance, 
without having this supplemented by unjust stricture from mem- 
