A PLEA FOR VETERINARY SURGERY 
105 
formed on many of the points referred to than is the average phy- 
from the mutual cultivation of that field which is common to both. 
This is already recognized in the best medical schools of Conti¬ 
nental Europe, and by their chairs of comparative pathology, filled 
by accomplished veterinarians, they are seeking to reap the ad¬ 
vantage. England lias recognized the same truth in associating with 
the Brown Institution—an endowed hospital for sick animals—a 
department for experimental research in comparative pathology, 
and a lectureship on the same subject. Oxford now follows suit 
in an endeavor to establish, within her academic shades, a chair 
of comparative pathology. 
If we turn from physiology to the pathological action of medi¬ 
cines, the basis of all rational therapeutics, we find that liere too 
a solid ground-work is laid in a careful observation and experi¬ 
mentation on animals. Take up any large work oil therapeutics, 
and you find that nearly every drug has been thoroughly tested on 
the lower animals, and that its various known physiological effects 
have each been determined by such experiment. 
Doctor Bell Pettigrew puts the case forcibly but thoughtfully, 
when he says : “ Is o one can intelligently administer medicine to 
a human patient who is ignorant of the effects produced by it on 
the lower animals. A perfectly educated physician should also be 
master of the veterinary art.” 
Another eminent medical writer remarks: “ That men should 
confine themselves to curing what they are pleased to call the lower 
animals to the exclusion of mankind, and the reverse, I cannot, 
and never have been able to understand, and I hope the day will 
soon come when he who medically treats mankind, may be looked 
upon as a dangerous specialist, if he has not attained his position 
by a comprehensive study of the diseases of the lower animals. 
That the sister study of human medicine should recognize the ad¬ 
vantage of a knowledge of comparative anatomy and physiology, 
and overlook the vast and unspeakable advantage of a knowledge 
of comparative pathology is really inconceivable.” 
The London Medical Examiner , in announcing a department 
of comparative pathology in its columns, makes the following very 
