42 FIRST TRIP TO RUSSIA 



doctors and veterinary surgeons are educated by the State for 

 mere nominal fees, they have not the right to call the tune, 

 like the man who paid the piper. 



A veterinary surgeon of twenty years' service gets 79 

 roubles a month ; 94^ roubles being equal to ^10. 



The social position of doctors in Russia is humble, to say 

 the least of it. Even those in civil practice have no fixed 

 fees : they take whatever their patients give them, like 

 waiters pocketing a tip. Veterinary surgeons are held there 

 in still lower social repute, and their professional reputation 

 is at even a higher discount. I have met in Russia some 

 excellent veterinary surgeons ; but as very few of them own 

 or ride horses, people think that they do not know much 

 about the inner life of these animals. This want of confidence 

 in their horse-doctors renders Russians unsatisfactory folk to 

 sell horses to ; because, instead of having a horse examined 

 and the matter settled one way or the other, the buyer takes 

 the animal if he likes it, and then for at least the next six 

 months submits it to the criticism of his friends, who, to show 

 off their knowledge, try to find all the real and imaginary 

 faults they can in it. Considering the great number of 

 difficult subjects which are included in the province of 

 veterinary knowledge, it is impossible for a man to have a 

 sound acquaintance with all or even most of them. For 

 instance, I am as ignorant of "beasts," sheep, and pigs as 

 some of our great English cattle pathologists are of horses. 

 Even veterinary surgeons, whose practice is almost entirely 

 confined to cart-horses, cannot form a reliable opinion on the 

 capabilities of hunters and racehorses to stand work, with 

 the nature of which they are unacquainted. Most of us in 

 this country like a horsey man for a horse, a doggy man for 

 a dog, and so on. The majority of the members of my 

 profession have entered it because they are fond of horses, 

 and they devote themselves with special enthusiasm to their 



