THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



ANNUAL VETERINARY REPORT. 



The following Annual Report was read from the Governors of 

 the Royal Veterinary College :— 



In presenting their annual report to the Council, the Go- 

 vernors desire in the first place to express their gratification 

 that during the past year nothing 'has occurred to disturb 

 the harmony which has so long and so advantageously ex- 

 isted between the Royal Agricultural Society and the Royal 

 Veterinary College. They see in this continued co-operation 

 an assurance that the agricultural community fully appre- 

 ciates the efforts which are made to advance the science of 

 veterinary medicine in its application to the diseases of cat- 

 tle, sheep, and pigs, and thus to raise this important branch 

 of the healing art above the practice of the uneducated 

 empyric. During the pait year the Governors have had 

 under consideration several important questions relating to 

 the instruction of the pupils, and they early took means to 

 render this as practical as scholastic discipline would permit, 

 by the appointment of a new demonstrator of anatomy, so 

 as to relieve the professors from having to occupy so much 

 of their time in mere expositions of the arrangement of the 

 structural parts of the animal body. The carrying out of 

 this plan has been attended with the happiest result, as the 

 professors have bsen euibled to extend their lectures and 

 demonstrations on the nature and causes of the variovis dis- 

 eases affecting domesticated animals. With reference to the 

 lectures specially devoted to the subject most important to 

 the interests of the general agriculturist, nothing has oc- 

 curred to prevent their regular delivery four times a-week 

 throughout the entire session, and they have been attended 

 by the whole of the pupils of the College ; and with what 

 success, ia shown by the fact that the proportionate number 

 which have passed their examination, and been admitted 

 members of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, has 

 been greater than in former years. 



Pathological Anatomy. — Throughout the past year 

 there has been received from the members of the Society 

 very many valuable specimens of disease, accompanied by 

 the history of the cases in which they occurred, and these 

 have been made available for the information of the pupils 

 by the demonstrations and explanations of the Professor of 

 Cattle Pathology in addition to his other instructions. The 

 Governors desire to give encouragement to this means of 

 making the education of the pupil as practical as possible, 

 because, from circumstances which would appear to be ir- 

 remediable, few cattle are admitted as patients at the col- 

 lege. It is a matter of regret to the Governors that no mea- 

 sure which has been tried by them in conjunction with the 

 Society has availed to bring to the College Infirmary a sufli- 

 cient number of oxen, sheep, or pigs, when the subjects of 

 disease. Even the merely nominal scale of charges which 

 was adopted a few years since for medical attendance, opera- 

 tions, keep, &c., of such animals, has failed in effecting this 

 most desirable object ; and the Governors are at a loss to 

 know what more can be done to remove the apathy which 

 exists in the agricultural body with reference to this im- 

 portant means of imparting practical information to the 

 pupils. By thus again directing the attention of the Coun- 

 cil to the subject, the Governors wonld hope that some 

 good may be done. 



Pupils. — The number of pupils which have been admitted to 

 the College is somewhat greater than before, and, as pre- 

 viously stated, they have been most regular in their 

 attendance, and will, after receiving instructions for two 

 sessional years, be eligible for examination by the Court of 

 Examiners, under the provisions of the charter granted to 



the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. It may perhaps 

 be necessary fo direct the attention of agriculturists to the 

 fact that very many persons who call themselves veterinary 

 surgeons and are practising in various parts of the country 

 have not received the diploma of the College, nor, indeed, 

 have attended any lectures on veterinary science; while 

 others have entered as pupils, remain only a short time, and 

 then gone into the country to practise with but an imperfect 

 knowledge of the principles of the healing art. 

 Practice of the College.— Although but few cattle Lave 

 been admitted as patients, yet some very interesting and 

 unusual cases have found their way into the infirmary ; and 

 notwithstanding it has not been customary to particularize 

 these, in coascqueuce of thereby unnecessarily increasing the 

 length of the Annual Report, still the Governors are de- 

 sirous of adverting to one of almost unique character, 

 namely, an affection of the base of the brain in a heifer 

 belonging to Stewart Marjoribanks, Esq. The symptoms 

 in this case were very remarkable, and afforded matter for 

 deep reflection on the part of the physiologist as well as the 

 pathologist. The attack was somewhat sudden, so much so 

 as to lead to the belief that the animal had sustained an in- 

 jury of the skull, but this was entirely disproved by the 

 post mortem examination. The change in the structure of 

 the brain was found to depend upon a scrofulous diathesis, 

 and it raised the question as to how much of the disease was 

 due to hereditary influence. It is matter of importance to 

 the breeders of c»tcle that scrofula has of late years been 

 considerably on the increase among what may be otherwise 

 designated the better breeds of animals. 

 Inspections. — The visits into the country by the Veterinary 

 Inspector, on the authority of the Council, have not been 

 very numerous this year, and the Governors would be glad 

 to see that the arrangeraent which has been made with re- 

 gard to the inspection of diseased cattle on the premises of 

 agriculturists was likewise in more general use ; for they 

 beheve much good would result therefrom, not only in 

 arresting the progress of disease, but in investigating the 

 causes, with a view to their removal, on which it was found 

 to deperd. At the country meeting of the Society at Salis- 

 bury the Inspector was in attendance, and the Governors 

 were much gratified to fiud by his report that fewer cases of 

 hereditary defects and diseases were existing among the 

 animals there brought together than at any former meeting 

 of the Society. By far the most important investigation of 

 the year which has been made by the inspector is that of the 

 nature and character of the continental disease of cattle, 

 known by the name of the steppe murraiu, rinderpest, &c., 

 and which excited so deep an interest in the minds of the 

 whole community for fear of its introduction into this coun- 

 try. It has not only been shown by him that the rumours 

 of its having extended from the steppes of Southern Russia, 

 which may be regarded as the home of the pest, to those 

 countries whence foreign cattle are exported for the supply 

 of our meat markets, were groundless, but that there is 

 scarcely a probability of its reaching this country. Besides 

 this important result of this mission to the continent, the 

 public are likewise now made familiar with the natural laws 

 which govern the spread of the malady, as well as with those 

 preventive measures which continental governments have 

 found most effectual in meeting its progress. Nor would 

 the Governors omit to state as a matter of cougratulatiou to 

 the Society, that the investigations which were made by the 

 Inspector, in daily watching the affected animals, noting the 

 symptom?, and subsequently instituting a searching exami- 

 nation of the lesions found upon death, have enabled him to 



