CORRESPONDENCE. 
36? 
this way are his best friends. If all our citizens were better instructed 
in the physiology and pathology of their own bodies, they would no 
longer support the great army of vampires that now sap their vitals with 
their blood purifiers, liver regulators, vital elixirs and panaceas in 
general. The agricultural graduates of Cornell University do not em¬ 
ploy the man who cuts out the feeders of ringbones and spavins at a 
point distant from their seat, who bores the horns and slits the tails of 
all sick cattle, who finds in blackened teeth a sufficient cause for all the 
ills that swine are heir to, who corrects watery eyes and a host of other 
maladies of the horse by extracting apparent or concealed wolf-teeth, 
who operates by the planetary signs, who castrates cows and mares by 
the antiquated flank method, and who sells an infallible remedy for all 
kinds of worms and in whatever situation—bowels, brain, lungs, liver, 
spleen, kidneys, peritoneum, etc., etc. They are educated enough to 
distinguish, appreciate and employ sound and reliable veterinary advice, 
and to influence their less favored neighbors to a similar course. They 
are the friends of veterinary progress and of the accomplished veteri¬ 
narian, and the sworn enemies of the quack and mere pretender. 
Allow me, then, to reiterate my faith in a sound veterinary education 
for farmers. The educated farmer will no more become his own veteri¬ 
narian, in a general way, than he will become his own chemist; but he 
will ever be the best friend of veterinary science. He knows too much 
to cut or drug recklessly himself or to allow others to do so. Need I 
quote the case of the celebrated empirical lithotomist whom the sur¬ 
geons instructed in the anatomy of the perineum and pelvis, with the 
view of adding skill to his successful boldness, but who, with his newly- 
acquired knowledge of the dangers to be met, could never be persuaded 
to operate again. 
A better agricultural and veterinary education means more and 
better stock on the same number of acres, consequently more demand 
for veterinary advice and a higher appreciation of veterinary skill. 
Ignorance means scourging the land with successive cereal crops, the 
maintenance of few, poor and valueless animals, and the committing of 
these to the care of the ignorant and mischievous empiric. Agricul¬ 
tural and veterinary education must go hand in hand, and I hail the 
diffusion of sound knowledge and the capacity of arriving at a just 
judgment among our farmers, as the precursor of a higher appreciation 
of veterinary science. With an educated farming community, govern¬ 
ment would find it impossible to ignore our vast live stock interests, 
and leave them exposed to their present dangers from imported and 
indigenous animal plagues. 
