THE ROYAL DUBLIN SOCIETY 339 



most advantageous for each." Dr. Wade, professor of 

 botany, was also to lecture " on the nature of the 

 several grasses and native plants of Ireland so far as 

 they ought to be the object of the farmers' attention 

 or knowledge, in respect of each species of animal, and 

 in what degree they are calculated to give him strength, 

 or fat, or value, or otherwise." The scope of the 

 lectures therefore embraced rural economy as well as 

 veterinary science, such as it was understood a century 

 ago. The fees to be paid by pupils, and the fees to 

 be paid to professors for professional services, were 

 published in Transactions^ vol. ii. part 1, p. 39. The 

 sum of ^100, ys. was paid to Dr. John Percival of 

 London for " a veterinary museum for the use of the 

 Society's veterinary lectures." 



Mr. Peall seems to have occupied a rather inde- 

 pendent position. In 1807, he informed the Society 

 that he had been appointed veterinary surgeon to the 

 Royal Artillery, and expressed his intention to deliver 

 his annual course of lectures at the Society's Repository. 

 About this time an effort was made by Government 

 to reduce expenditure in every possible way, and the 

 veterinary establishment was one of the victims of this 

 wave of economy. There was a feeling that Mr. Peall 

 had been badly treated, and that the expectations he 

 had been led to entertain had not been realised. No 

 doubt it was for this reason that we find the Society, in 

 1 8 13, voting the sum of twenty-five guineas for a copy 

 of Mr. Peall's book, Practical Observations on the diseases 

 of the Horse. He continued to deliver brief courses of 

 lectures annually until a short time before his death, 

 which took place in May, 1825. In June of the same 

 year a committee submitted a scheme for a Veterinary 

 Institution " differing in several essential respects from 

 that which had been agreed to by the Society in 1800." 



