290 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
pronounce a hackneyed common-place opinion on thy case, and then 
proceed with all expedition to open thy veins, lacerate thy flesh, cau- 
terize thy sinews, and drench thy stomach with drugs adverse in 
general to the cure they engage to perform.” 
And in this connection we cannot refrain from adding a few 
remarks in behalf of veterinary science. It is difficult to explain 
why there should exist such complete apathy upon this subject 
throughout our country, especially when we take into consideration 
the vast interests at stake. Scientific and agricultural schools have 
been established, and have been largely endowed, and not until com- 
paratively lately has any provision been made for instruction in this 
science. Not a single national or state veterinary college exists. All 
that can be said in justification of this long neglect (if justification it 
can be called) is that we have followed the course of older nations. In 
Great Britain, for example, it is only ata comparatively recent period 
that veterinary medicine has been recognized among the liberal arts, 
and the practice regarded as by no means incompatible with the 
dignity of a man of education. In France, Germany, and in Italy, 
the science has been long cultivated, and its teachers have been held 
in high estimation. In fact their labors and researches have contrib- 
uted largely to the advance of modern physiology. 
That the profession has been highly appreciated by the great of 
both ancient and modern times, we have ample testimony. Both 
Homer and Xenophon wrote upon the horse, — the latter a treatise on 
equitation. “When Xenophon wrote his rural treatises, he was living 
in that delightful region of country which lies westward of the moun- 
tains of Arcadia, looking toward the Ionian Sea. Here, ‘too, he wrote 
the story of his retreat and his wanderings among the mountains of 
Armenia; here he talked with his friends, and made other such sym- 
posia as he has given us a taste of, at the house of Callias, the 
Athenian; here he ranged over the whole country-side with his 
horses and dogs; a stalwart and lithe old gentleman, without a doubt; 
able to mount a horse or to manage one with the supplest of the 
grooms; and with a keen eye, as his book shows, for the good points 
in horse flesh. A man might make a worse mistake than to buy a 
horse after Xenophon’s instructions, to-day. A spayvin or a windgall 
did not escape the old gentleman’s eye, and he never bought a nag 
without proving his wind and handling him well about the mouth and 
