THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



437 



THE ROYAL VETERINARY COLLEGE. 



If any evidence were wanting of the advance of the 

 veterinary art, it would be found in the high tone 

 which characterizes the communication between tlie 

 Professor and liis pupil. Sound practical men, such as 

 Spooner or Simonds, would be not very likely to fall 

 into the mistake of talking in a strain above their au- 

 dience. On the contrary, the first duty of the tutor is 

 to adapt himself not merely to the comprehension, but 

 equally so to the habits of his class. He must not In 

 any way ask too much of them, or his great aim, to 

 make them feel with him, is proportionately impaired 

 as he rises above their abilities and aspirations. If, 

 then, we see the heads of the college adopting a certain 

 refinement of expression, and impressing an elevated 

 course of action, we may fairly look to the result from 

 the premises. The student may not merely qualify 

 as a veterinary surgeon, but he may rank as a gentle- 

 man. The somewhat dubious position he may have 

 held, while the farrier was graduatir>g into the duly- 

 passed Master of Medicine, is strengthened every year 

 the College re-opens. Whatever yet be the type of 

 the medical student — " the rough," or the scape- 

 grace that caricaturists have delighted to depict him — 

 it will be the young veterinarian's own fault if he is 

 not recognised as something more reputable. It is only 

 the naturally evil spirit that grows worse from its asso- 

 ciation with the horse, while surely the proper study of 

 that noble animal should be to only the more human- 

 ize the dispositions of those who devote themselves to 

 his service. 



It is so that Professor Spooner interprets his mission. 

 And it is in thorough acquiescence with such a reading 

 that we again give the inaugural address of the Veteri- 

 nary College its place in our columns. Especially in- 

 tended as this of course is for one certain " set", 

 there are few but who may go through the paper 

 with advantage. The relation, indeed, between 

 the two arts is now too close for one to look on 

 the other with indifierence, and the names of Pro- 

 fessor Spooner and of Professor Simonds are al- 

 most as well known to agriculturists as to the 

 members of their own profession. Last season, as may 

 be remembered, Mr. Simonds had the turn, and we 

 look on him, in Hanover-squai'e, as our great reference 

 and authority for sheep and pigs. On this occasion, 

 the gentleman who discourses is yet as famous for his 

 knowledge of the horse. Never, certainly, was the 

 ticklish question of unsoundness dealt with more 

 boldly or more ably than by Professor Spooner at 

 the Royal Canterbury Meeting. Prize stallions of but 

 a week or two previous were at once condemned as suf- 

 fering from constitutional or hereditary infirmity; and 

 we have never heard yet that such disqualification has 

 been impeached, however strong the emphasis with 

 which it was enforced. The Professor dwells with 

 much satisfaction on the good understanding still 



existing between the national Agricultural Society and 

 the Veterinary College ; while ho has to deplore in a 

 strain of quaint, chastened sorrow, the little opportunity 

 he and his fellows find on the Turf. "Are we too 

 honest, or not honest enough to be consulted," when 

 the favourite is fenced in by " secrecy and suspicion,'' 

 or guarded like the beauties of an Eastern Harem ? 



But what we would chiefly impress as the point of 

 this oration is that we commenced with— its tendency 

 to elevate and humanize the minds of those who 

 have heard or may I'ead it. Nothing perhaps was a 

 more distinguishing sign of the old, obsolete farrier 

 than the coarse cruelty which, in his ignorance, he so 

 often insisted on as one of the necessities of his practice. 

 Nothing is now, happily, so little characteristic of the 

 profession that has superseded him. True Science, in 

 reality, is but the handmaiden of Humanity ; and its 

 first care is, or should be, to avoid all that heedless 

 torture and suffering once sanctioned in such a cause. 

 It is only to be feared lest such barbarities should again 

 arise up amongst us. Professor Spooner anxiously 

 warns us that this may be the case, while the French 

 schools offer us the example they do. For, even in the 

 study of veterinary art we are continually reminded 

 by some of our own people how much more perfect 

 " the course" is in Paris than in London. Our Pro- 

 fessor has recently had to judge of this for himself, 

 and it is thus that he speaks of what he saw : — " Two 

 days a week, at nine o'clock in the morning, the 

 doomed horse is cast ; and then he is subjected to all 

 sorts of surgical operations, such as firing, neurotomy, 

 cutting away pieces of the cartilage of the foot — ope- 

 rating as for stone in the bladder, extirpating the pa- 

 rotid and other glands, or the eyes, or any organ that 

 forceps can pull, or that knives and saws can reach. 

 Steel and fingers, guided by stony hearts, invade the 

 poor animal at all points. These operations on the 

 same horse last from nine o'clock in the morning until 

 four in the afternoon ; unless, indeed, he becomes unfit 

 for the diabolism by dying in the meantime." But 

 the Englishman witnessed these atrocities not with the 

 object of imitating, but of denouncing them. He con- 

 tended that the necessity for such fiendish practices was 

 utterly absurd, and he went specially to enter his pro- 

 test against them. Here, we arc hopeful enough to be- 

 lieve that we have outlived such an era, and that with 

 all our rage for anything French, it would be impossible 

 even to propose so revolting an experiment. The story 

 of Empires long since passed away assures us that 

 a certain excess or devilish refinement of cruelty was 

 one of the surest signs of approaching decay. The tone 

 of society here in England, however, is far too healthy to 

 countenance the acts of Alfort or Lyons — that we look 

 on rather as the relics of a by-gone age, when men 

 were burnt at the stake, bulls baited to death, and 

 hounds impaled alive before the easel of the artist, that 



