136 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE VETERINARY DEPARTMENT OF 



certificates, the plate for the certificate having been previously 

 altered in conformity to the Society's corporate name in the 

 new charter. 



Sixteenth Session, 1838-39. 



By the period of the sixteenth session, the Edinburgli 

 Veterinary School was considered as a national institution. 

 Upwards of one hundred students attended the lectures of 

 the session, and seventeen having gone through the prescribed 

 course of study attended the examination on the 25th and 26th 

 April, received certificates of qualification. Besides the great 

 increase in the number of students, their grade was also greatly 

 improved — they were now quite of a superior class — and this 

 "was no doubt very much to be attributed to the great boon 

 which had been obtained for the school in the recognition of its 

 graduates as qualified for commission as veterinary surgeons in 

 the British army and in that of the East India Company. 

 Among the premiums awarded this year were two for anatomical 

 preparations. So important was this subject considered both by 

 the members of the Committee and the medical examiners, as 

 an evidence of the comparative manual dexterity of the veter- 

 inary student, it was agreed by them that, in future, no student 

 should be allowed to become a candidate for a certificate unless 

 he produced an anatomical preparation executed by his own 

 hand. 



Seventeenth Session, 1839-40. 



At the iGreneral Meeting of the Society in January 1840, it 

 was noticed that the successful application made by the Society 

 to Lord Hill, through the Duke of Sutherland, to have the 

 graduates of the Edinburgh School declared eligible for com- 

 missions as veterinary surgeons in the army, had now been 

 carried into practical effect, Mr James Robertson, one of these, 

 having obtained a commission. Upon his examination pre- 

 paratory to his appointment, Mr Eobertson acquitted himself 

 most creditably. 



The number of pupils who attended the seventeenth session 

 was seventy-eight, of whom forty-eight were professional stu- 

 dents, who had the peculiar privilege, nowhere else enjoyed by 

 veterinary students, of obtaining acquaintance with human ana- 

 tomy and physiology, by attending, gratuitously, the prelections 

 of several of the eminent lecturers, who have been a great means 

 of extending the basis of medical education in Edinburgh. The 

 fruits of this latter advantage were well displayed on the 

 occasion of this year's examination, which were held on the 21st 

 and 22d April, when eighteen pupils were declared by the ex- 

 aminers worthy of receiving certificates to practice. In obedi- 



