the college attending a necessary, but severe operation, jostling and wrestling with his fellows for the best view; execrating the struggles of the agonized animal and mocking its groans; not one expression of commiseration heard from a considerable proportion of the spectators; not one calculation how far a part at least of the torture may be saved, consistently with the object of the operation. The loud laugh and the ribald joke drowning the voice of the operator-or the operator himself, when not too much annoyed by the shameless indecency of the scene, pausing in the midst of his work, and joining in the laugh. We have sometimes thought that if a stranger were present at this unnatural exhibition, he would imagine that we were training for purposes of brutality, and not of humanity, and be very cautious how he entrusted a valuable and generous animal to our tender mercies; and sure we are, that scenes like these are more calculated to train us to become butchers than surgeons; and hence in a great measure it is that so many of our operations are performed in a butcher-like and unprofessional manner. We are aware that one of the most important requisites in a surgeon is perfect self-possession; and that the feelings of the patient should for a moment merge in the important object of the operation: but this is different from those exhibitions in which there is no previous comparison of suffering and advantage, and no subsequent commiseration. It cannot be denied, that circumstances do sometimes attend the operations of veterinary surgery, which would meet with universal execration in the theatre of the human surgeon : the inevitable consequence of this on the mind of the young practitioner has not been sufficiently calculated; or rather the error has been that we have not felt ourselves bound to regard the

feelings and the sufferings of the quadruped given

to our care.

"A more protracted residence at our places of veterinary tuition, by bringing young men of superior stations in life, and better previous education, will, by degrees, correct these principles and habits which too much characterize and yet disgrace the groom and the smith.

Practice alone, founded on anatomical knowledge, can give expertness in operation. The human surgeon practises first on the dead subject, and his instructor or his senior standing by, can explain the reason, the importance, or the danger of every step. The veterinary pupil has advantages far superior to those which are enjoyed by the student of human surgery. At the knacker's he finds a constant supply of dead subjects, and he procures them or the parts he wants at a cheap rate. But this does not satisfy him-he vou faucibus hærat! with fewer operations generally to perform, and still fewer of importance, practises on the living subject. A knot of pupils go to the knacker, they bargain for some poor condemned animal, they cast him, and they cut him up, and torture him alive. They perform the nerve operation on each leg, and on each side they fire him on the coronet, the fetlock, the leg, the hock, and the round bone; they insert setons in every direction; they nick him, they dock him, they trephin him when one is tired of cruelty, another succeeds; and at length, perhaps, they terminate his sufferings by some new mode of destroying life. Did the Coopers, the Greens, the Brodies of the present day, thus acquire precision and judgment? or if they had, would they not have been supposed to have been qualifying themselves for the office of familiars at the inquisition, rather than of humane surgeons? Would

they not have been detested while living, and held in lasting execration when dead? But these operations on the living subject teach the youngster how to accommodate himself to the struggles of the animal, how to feather his lines with mathematical exactness, and to acquaint himself with the true colour produced by the iron when it has seered the skin sufficiently deep! Would not one or two operations on the real patient have given all that would be necessary, without engaging the conservators of the health and enjoyment of the horse in the functions of demons, and giving them an indifference to suffering and a callousness of feeling which taints the whole course of their after practice?

That school wants reform which, by the dearth of operations that are committed to the pupils, tempts to the commission of atrocities like these. Every pupil after having been compelled to operate once or twice or thrice on the dead subject before the professor, should in his turn be called on to operate on the different cases which are brought to the college. Under the immediate inspection of the professor there could be no danger to the patient; and one operation, every step of which was guided and directed by the professor, would be more useful to the student than a hundred at the knacker's yard; but according to the present system, nearly all the operations are performed by the assistant-professor, and the demonstrator and the pupils are permitted only to look on. Some alteration is here imperiously required.

THE COW.

AMONG the quadrupeds with which the earth abounds, none appears to be more extensively diffused than the cow; as it is found either large or small, in proportion to the quantity and quality of its food, in every part of the world, from the polar circles to the equator. The life of this animal extends to about fifteen years; and its age may be ascertained with tolerable facility, as at the age of four years, a ring is formed towards the root of the horns, and each succeeding year adds another. There is no animal so liable to alteration from the quality of the pasture. Thus, Africa is remarkable for the largest and the smallest cattle of this kind, as are also Poland, Switzerland, and several other parts of Europe. Among the Eluth Tartars, where the pastures are remarkably luxuriant, the cow becomes so large that few men can reach the tip of its shoulders; but in France, where the animal is stinted in its food, and driven from its natural pasturage, it greatly degenerates.

The cow has seldom more than one calf at a time, and goes about nine months. There is scarcely a part of this animal that is not useful to mankind: its milk

forms a rich and nutritive aliment for the human species, and gives to our tables the important articles of butter and cheese; and of late years, benefit has been derived even from one of its diseases, by the introduction of vaccine inoculation, an antidote for that horrible and deadly disorder, the small-pox.

Such are the advantages derived from the cow, that we may almost be induced to admire that superstitious veneration which the Gentoos entertain for an animal to which they are under so great obligations. To such a height, however, do they carry their reverence, that there is scarcely a Gentoo to be found that would not, were he under a compulsatory option, prefer sacrificing his parents or children to the slaughtering of a bull or

or cow.

THE COMMON OX.

FROM this well known and useful animal are derived the numerous varieties of common cattle found in various parts both of the old and new continent. In its wild and native state it is distinguished by the depth and shagginess of its hair, which about the head, neck, and shoulders, is frequently of such a length as almost to touch the ground; and it grows to such an enormous size, as sometimes to weigh sixteen hundred or two thousand pounds.

The horns are rather short, strong, and sharppointed, and stand distant from each other at their basis. The colour is generally either a dark or yellowish-brown. The limbs are very strong and muscular, and the whole aspect gloomy and ferocious.