All in all the question of prognosis cannot always be judiciously decided at a first visit, and for the sake of his own reputation, it is well that the practitioner should give only a qualified opinion at first until he can certify himself as to the probable outcome of the disease. PROPHYLAXIS. PROPHYLACTICS. PREVENTION. A test of public sentiment. Soil. Water. Exposure. Buildings. Local hygiene. Breeding. Diet. Work. Harness. Ventilation. With advancing knowledge of veterinary medicine the subject of prophylaxis is steadily assuming a more important place, and especially in the classes of enzootic and epizootic diseases. Indeed for the fatal infectious diseases of animals one can fairly estimate the medical intelligence of the people by the extent to which therapeutic treatment is still allowed. With economy as the great central object of veterinary medicine, the problematical recovery of the few can never balance the assured preservation of the many. But this subject belongs to contagious diseases to which the reader is referred. In enzootic affections, improvements in soil, water, exposure, buildings, and other local unhygienic conditions, are the final ends to be sought, according to the particular nature of the prevailing disease. So in sporadic diseases the correction of faults in breeding, hygiene, diet, water, work, harness, exposure, buildings, ventilation, etc., are called for in different cases as will be noted under the individual diseases. THERAPEUTICS. TREATMENT. Definition. Mechanical and Medicinal Therapeutics. Adaptation to each case of disease. The ultimate object of all medicine is to prevent disease or when it cannot be prevented, to cure. The term therapeutics covers all measures applied with curative object. Therapeutics are naturally divided into =Mechanical= and =Medicinal=. To mechanical therapeutics pertains the whole domain of surgery. Medicinal therapeutics has to do especially with internal medicine. Each of them, however, encroaches more or less on the other. Modern surgery is essentially aseptic or antiseptic, and antisepsis is secured by medicinal agents. In medicine when cups are applied we adopt an essentially mechanical treatment. Both methods then must remain open to physician and surgeon. Another and no less important branch of treatment which is open to physician and surgeon alike is diet and general hygiene. The same care must be given to the use of these in the treatment of disease as in its prevention, and in many cases a judicious use of these may almost entirely obviate the necessity for medicine.