MEDICAL ATTENDANCE. 369 



converted into chymists ; when they have seen a skeleton they 

 have studied anatomy ; when they have opened an abscess, 

 or drawn blood, they are good surgeons, having performed 

 many dangerous and difficult operations with great success. 

 To such people is the world indebted for all kinds of quackery, 

 and a good deal of knavery. Their practical experience is 

 but a shadow ; their opinion a guess ; their performance a 

 failure ; and their pretensions to skill, what are they, but the 

 assumptions of ignorance, or the disguises of imposition ? 



The blacksmith and shoer usually term themselves farriers ; 

 but in most all large towns there are some who take the title 

 of veterinary surgeons, a kind of fraud for which the law has 

 provided no remedy. 



Veterinary surgeons form a third, and the only legitimate 

 class of medical attendants on the horse. The term veteri- 

 narian came into use when colleges were established in dif- 

 ferent parts of Europe for improving, or rather for creating the 

 art of treating disease in the lower animals. France founded in 

 1761 the first school of this kind. There were none in this 

 country till thirty years afterward. At present there are two 

 at London and one at Edinburgh. In each of these schools, 

 the structure and diseases of domestic animals are taught from 

 observations and study of the dead and of the living. The 

 kind of instruction is not quite the same at each school ; but 

 in all, the students have opportunities, many or more, of ex- 

 amining every part of the frame, both in health and in disease, 

 and of watching and treating patients of almost every kind. 

 In one winter, an industrious student will see as much at 

 these places as the people who boast of great experience will 

 see in the whole course of their lives ; and then everything 

 is seen in the right way, the inside as well as the outside. 

 After attending a stated period, the pupils are brought before 

 a Board of Examiners, who ascertain their qualification. If 

 fit to practise, they obtain a certificate, which is termed a 

 diploma ; if not, they are referred to a longer course of study. 

 No one who wants a diploma is a veterinary surgeon. A 

 pretender may assume the name, and among an ignorant 

 people he may carry on the imposition pretty well, and for a 

 good while ; but the day seems to be coming when quackery 

 must expire. The man of education now disdains the profler- 

 ed services of an empiric for himself, and, erelong, he will 

 take care that his horse or his dog shall not be added to the 

 victims already sacrificed to ignorance. 



THE END. 



