122 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE VETERINARY DEPARTMENT OF 



most celebrated Veterinary schools are not connected with 

 Universities ; but that such an establishment might be united 

 very advantageously with some other institution, such as the 

 Highland Society ; and, in fine, the committee of the Senatus 

 was of opinion that the establishing of a Veterinary School, 

 with the appendages of stables, hospital, and forge, within the 

 city or its precincts, would be desirable. 



At the time the proposal of the Lord Provost was under the 

 consideration of the Senatus, the late Mr William Dick was 

 attending the classes in the Medical and Surgical Schools of 

 Edinburgh ; and in the following session (1817-18) he attended 

 the Veterinary College of London, where on the 27th January 

 1818 he obtained his certificate. In the three succeeding 

 sessions Mr Dick delivered lectures, first in Freemasons' 

 Hall, Niddry Street, then in the South Bridge, afterwards in the 

 School of Arts, and latterly in the Calton Convening Room. 

 But it was for long a matter of regret to those immediately 

 interested in the management of live stock that no permanent 

 institution existed in Scotland to promote a knowledge of the 

 diseases, cure, and treatment of our doruestic animals. Such 

 had long been established in France, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, 

 Prussia, and, more latterly, in London and Dublin. But, with 

 the exception above set forth, nowhere in Scotland had instruc- 

 tion been afforded in the Veterinary art, either by public or 

 private lectures, and very few regularly educated Veterinary 

 surgeons were established in this country. The consequence 

 was, that the farriers and others who pretended to the know- 

 ledge of the diseases of horses and cattle were in general 

 lamentably ignorant of what they professed to understand and 

 to practise. 



In the spring of 1823 the matter of public lectures for giving 

 instruction in Veterinary subjects was brought under the notice 

 of the Directors of the Highland Society by Mr Robert Johnston, 

 merchant, Edinburgh. The Board being sufficiently alive to its 

 importance, and its intimate connection with the advancement 

 of agricultural science, a committee was appointed, consisting of 

 Professor Coventry, Professor Hope, Dr John Barclay, Sir John 

 Hope, Mr Fergusson of Woodhill, Mr Graham Dalyell, Mr Small 

 Keir of Kinmonth, Mr Scott of Sinton, and others, of which Dr 

 Barclay was named convener. After due deliberation, it was 

 agreed that a lecturer sufficiently qualified should be patronised 

 in a course of lectures ; and accordingly the General Meeting in 

 June 1823 placed the sum of fifty pounds * at the disposal of 



* Next year the grant was thirty guineas, and since that time the annual 

 allowance to the Society's Professor of Veterinary Surgery has been twenty-five 



