1G2 SCOTTISH METROPOLITAN VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
fining myself, therefore, to horse and cattle practice, and presuming 
that we all have our successes and occasional failures., allow me to 
make a few plain — very plain — remarks on some of them. 
Our everyday practice, I daresay, most of us find to be a mixture 
of pleasure and vexation. When cases turn out well, when good 
weather, good treatment, and good pay attend us, we feel we would 
exchange our lot with but few ; but when bad cases turn up ; when 
too hard work, no thanks, and little pay are our portion, we are apt 
to become vexed and dispirited. At such times it is pleasing to 
reflect that we have, at least, done our duty ; if we can’t do all the 
good we desire, we have at least done, and are doing much, and are 
moreover, the means of preventing others doing an incalculable 
amount of mischief. 
Setting aside the positive good we do, our indirect influence is 
great. Farmers and other owners now feed and treat their stock 
better and have fewer losses than formerly ; horseshoers do their 
work better ; trainers and grooms have some slight idea how to 
behave toward a sick horse — for the most part, they take the credit 
to themselves. What would have been the state of matters with 
them had our profession never existed ? 
In places where veterinary surgeons are few, the number of cases 
of poll-evil, fistula of the withers, neglected quittors, and canker of 
the foot ; of deaths from colic, influenza, chest diseases, and such 
like, is surprising — there the whole artillery of the farriers is still 
in operation : bleeding, physicking, and drugging ; drawing the 
sole, cutting out the glibes, the haws, and worms in the tail, &c. ; 
and in very secluded places I have met with a few of a race whom I 
thought existed only in heathendom, viz. charmers, to whose voice, 
however, disease does not listen, charm they never so wisely. 
Wherever well-educated veterinary surgeons go, such evils disappear, 
and poor suffering brutes may be thankful to them, were it only 
for the evils they counteract. 
While congratulating ourselves, however, it may be well to inquire 
do no evils now exist among us ? Smiths, we know, are still too 
free with the lampas-iron ; dogs’ ears are cropped. Why do we 
dock so many horses? For one whose looks are thereby improved, 
there are half a dozen none the better, but the worse for it. Must 
farm-horses be docked because their tails are occasionally bruised 
by the fronts of their carts ? Can no simple mechanical con- 
trivance be invented to prevent this? Again, are there no remains 
of the drugging system among us ? Is the conduct of those prac- 
titioners justifiable who charge little for attendance, but make up 
for it in medicines? Is it right that poor brutes are to have 
enormous doses poured over their throats in order that their doctors 
may make up a bill? From what I have seen, I believe, if we do 
our duty and please our employers, we may make out our accounts 
as we like, provided we satisfy them our charges are reasonable. 
And here, though foreign to the subject, we might raise and discuss 
the question of discount to servants (in money or otherwise). We 
are all agreed it should not be given. Can we always dispense with 
