480 
EVERY MAN TO HIS TRADE. 
Bat how can I make any such boast when medical gentlemen 
so forget what is due to me and my profession, as to tender 
their services in the case of a sick lion. What is the use of 
my making one particular branch of anatomy and physiology 
my study if my existence is to be ignored when an animal 
worth more than many a man would sell for is in a fatal illness ? 
Neither I, sir, nor the lion got a chance — he of living or I of 
curing him : for though I admit the skill of every one of those 
gentlemen in their own business, I deny that they know any- 
thing of mine. Had I been called in, sir, poor Jupiter instead 
of being skinned, might now have been roaring in his glory; 
and I would suggest, sir, whether those gentlemen might not 
all be tried for lionslaughter, as I should certainly be for man- 
slaughter had I attended a man and he died under my hands. 
We must keep the professions distinct, sir, or there is no use 
of colleges — the line is defined and must be observed, and 
the invasion on one side treated with as much severity as on 
another. Let the medical doctors attend to the Lords of the 
Creation and leave the Lords of the Forest to us veterinary 
surgeons : or if they will meddle with animals out of their 
province, let them act upon the Latin proverb : “ Fiat experi- 
rnentum in corpore vili ,” and try their hand upon a creature of 
less marketable value than a lion ; let them confine their ex- 
perimental practise to the monkey cage, w here some of the 
Hunterian discoveries may be worked out, and their researches 
still further illustrate the interesting department of compara- 
tive anatomy. While the learned conclave were shaking their 
heads in front of the bars of poor Jupiter’s cage, and poor 
Jupiter drooping his ow r n inside out, perhaps if w r e could in- 
terpret the chatter of Master Jacko and his mates close by, 
we should have heard them say, “ Poor Peter is a gone coon, 
for they have called in the doctors of the two-legged animals 
to see his case.” I defy them, how r ever, to be competent, 
because they happened to be able to treat a biped whom the 
philosopher called a two-legged animal without feathers, to 
be on this account competent to come into my province, and 
undertake the cure of four-footed creatures. For the most 
part medical men drive the most hungry cattle going, and all 
because they physic them themselves ; but if they will kill 
their own carriage horses, let them leave the lions for the 
future to me. 
Yours, Sir, 
A Veterinary Surgeon. 
*** The two foregoing paragraphs are both extracted from 
the Bristol Times; the former bearing date 28 th May, 
