452 
HUMAN AND VETERINARY SCIENCE. 
and “ Success,” but I was totally unprepared for such a shock as 
I received upon reading the communication of M. D. Y. S. Even 
now, I can scarcely believe that it is not a huge joke, perpetrated 
by some quizzical successful practitioner. There was a time, sir, 
when it was deemed an honor to belong to a learned profession— 
when a degree in divinity, law or physic conferred dignity upon 
a man; but O tempora ! O mores ! how have the professions fallen 
from their high estate. Quackery abounds in all of them, but 
the temples of zEsculapius have been most befouled by his priests. 
Under the pretext of ministering to the public weal, we have 
advertising in its most specious forms. We find dispensaries, 
private and municipal, parading their special advantages, thereby 
cheapening physic, and indirectly calling attention to the superior 
qualifications of their medical staffs. We have medical bath 
houses, mineral springs of all kinds, with “ medical directors ” or 
superintendents in charge ; u homes for invalids,” “ private hos¬ 
pitals,” and ‘‘ retreats ” of all sorts kept by medical boarding¬ 
house keepers, who board, lodge and physic their patients for a 
consideration. Then we have medico-chirurgical tradesmen or 
mechanics , under which heading may be classed the makers of 
artificial legs, braces, abdominal supporters, etc., who flaunt their 
easily acquired M.D. in every public print, and trade under the 
grandiloquent titles of orthopaedic or mechanical surgeons, elec¬ 
tricians, etc., etc. Passing by (with due reverence) the female 
doctors (why not doctresses ?), we come to the dentists—always a 
most useful but humble class—-whose use of the absurd degree 
“ D.D.S.” has played sad havoc with that ancient and reverend 
title Divinitatis Doctor. And here let me ask why the cuppers, 
leechers, barbers and nurses are left without a degree ? We have 
already Tennessee “ Doctors of Pharmacy ” to confuse with the 
Pli. D.’s; and to cap the climax, we are to have doctors of veter¬ 
inary medicine, “ a sister branch ” of our divine art, as your cor¬ 
respondent, M. D. V. S., most facetiously calls it. 
Heaven help the profession of physic, when its disappointed 
members shall be obliged to become “ horse doctors,” even though 
“ the financial rewards be satisfactory to the most sanguine. 5 ’ 
