156 HISTOEICAL ACCOUKT OF THE VETERINARY DEPARTMENT OF 



attended sedulously to the work of keeping themselves abreast 

 of the improvements and extensions of professional knowledge 

 made from time to time, they could not expect to attain that 

 amount of success to which their present position and acquire- 

 ments entitled them to look forward. The veterinary practi- 

 tioner was now in a much better position for prosecuting his 

 professional studies than members of the other branches of the 

 medical profession. The medical practitioner, after he left 

 college, often felt considerable difficulty in keeping up his 

 acquaintance with elementary branches of study, such as 

 anatomy and physiology; but there was no such obstruction in the 

 way of tlie veterinarian. His subjects were easily obtained, and 

 he would therefore counsel them to keep up and extend, as they 

 had opportunity, their knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and 

 chemistry. He need not say how much they were indebted to 

 their teachers in that place, and how they should endeavour to 

 advance the interests of the school in which they had been 

 educated ; but he might assure them, speaking both for himself 

 and the other examinators, that they had been very highly 

 gratified by the appearance made by all the students under 

 examination. The average of the ability and information ex- 

 hibited was very high indeed, and fully warranted him in repeat- 

 ing what he stated last year, and what had also been expressed 

 by other examinators, that there was a growing improvement in 

 the character and tone of those examinations. He fully concurred 

 in the observation made to him that day by a medical colleague, 

 that the style of the answers given there to the examinators 

 was by no means inferior to that which they expected and were 

 accustomed to meet with in examinations in the Medical Cor- 

 porations and the University. It would give him very great 

 pleasure to report to the Highland Society the highly satisfac- 

 tory appearance which the students and competitors had made 

 upon the present as upon former occasions, and the great 

 gratification which the examinations had given to all the 

 examinators. 



Thirty -ninth Session, 1861-62. 



During the session the lectures were attended by a large 

 number of pupils, and at the annual examinations, on 22d and 

 23d April 1862, the Society's certificate was conferred on thirty- 

 eight candidates. 



Professor Goodsir, as chairman of the examiners, delivered a 

 closing address to the students. He said — " Gentlemen, I am 

 very unwilling to occupy you with any extended observations, 

 but there are a few remarks which it is quite necessary that I 

 should make in closing the business which has occupied us 



