CORRESPONDENCE. 
177 
Item arks .—The animal had been driven in a grocer’s wagon 
about two months, without showing any symptoms of disease, eat¬ 
ing and drinking with almost a ravenous appetite. Three days 
before the attack he injured his knee, in the stable, it was sup¬ 
posed by getting cast, and had not been worked, which was all the 
time lost in the two months. The stable keeper informed me 
that he had known the horse for five years, and that lie had been 
healthy. The fact that the animal had been able to perform the 
labor required until the injury occurred, and that no evidence of 
sickness was present until five hours previous to his death, tends 
to make the case particularly interesting. 
West Newton, May 24, 1878. 
AN OPEN LETTER TO WOULD-BE STUDENTS OF VETERINARY MEDI¬ 
CINE IN THE UNITED STATES. 
BY F. S BILLINGS. 
During the past few months I have had the pleasure of 
answering several letters from countrymen on the above subject, 
and as there may be others who are desirous of like information 
in a more concentrated form than it has otherwise appeared from 
me, I take this way of gratifying them ; at the same time I would 
earnestly recommend young men desiring to enter the veterinary 
profession to read the series of papers which have appeared from 
me in the Turf\ Field and Farm , and the revision of the Schools 
of France, which came out in the Spirit of the Times of May 26 
and June 2, 1877. I am fully aware of the responsibility resting 
upon me in thus offering advice to young persons in selecting the 
place by which they are to gain the means of obtaining not only 
a subsistance, but a position in the world, and in a certain sense of 
the word I leave the question open to the aspirant, for it depends 
on him, even more than the school, what the result will be. 
Before speaking of schools, however, I feel impelled to call 
the attention of every aspirant who is on the verge of entering 
our profession, against a danger to which all of us are liable, and 
which has, I believe, wrecked many a good man, and lias been 
