Report of the Governors of the Royal Veterinary College. 363 
confident that they will tend to the advancement of veterinary 
science, and to an increase of its value by the public. 
During the past year seventy-five candidates, having passed 
I the matriculation examination conducted by the College of 
Preceptors, have entered upon their studies ; and during the 
same space of time forty-seven students, who had completed 
I their term of study, have been admitted members of the Royal 
College of Veterinary Surgeons, The Court of Examiners of 
this body is so constituted that every student has to undergo 
as searching an examination on cattle pathology as on any other 
division of his collegiate instruction. It will thus be seen that 
no veterinary surgeon of the present day can commence practice 
with a knowledge of the diseases of one animal only, a circum- 
stance of no small importance to the agricultural community. 
The lectures on cattle pathology have been regularly delivered 
four times a week ; besides which advantage has been taken of 
the receipt of numerous specimens of organic disease from 
veterinary surgeons and also from members of the Royal 
Agricultural Society, to explain to the students the nature of 
the changes which had taken place, their several causes, and 
also the principles of prevention, mitigation, or cure, which 
should obtain in each particular case. 
A few years since, the Governors had occasion to express 
their regret that the efforts of the College to procure specimens 
of cattle diseases from the country received but little support ; 
they have therefore the greater pleasure in reporting to the 
Council that there is no lack of int^^rest in this respect now 
manifested on the part of members of the Society. 
Experience has proved that the difficulties in the v/ay of 
sending living animals, when suffering from disease, from the 
farm to the infirmary, are to a great extent insurmountable. 
The value therefore of each morbid specimen, especially when 
accompanied with a history of the case, is greatly enhanced. It 
is to be hoped, therefore, that a determination to send such 
specimens will be still adhered to, and the Governors venture to 
express their conviction that the advantages of the practice only 
require to be more widely known in order for it to be more 
largely adopted. 
It should likewise be borne in mind that investigations of 
the kind alluded to have often a value far beyond that of the 
mere treatment of the disease, as they frequently point to the 
means which should be adopted for its prevention. 
Apart from diseases of a special infectious or contagious nature, 
which are only to be kept in check by a thorough and complete 
investigation of the laws which govern their spread, the mala- 
dies of herbivorous animals, and especially those which come 
