9 
STATE OF THE VETERINARY PROFESSION. 
Wolverhampton, Dec. 9th, 1850. 
Dear Sir, — I CONGRATULATE you on the addition of a new 
and novel contributor to the list of your subscribers, a Sporting 
Surgeon — a most ingenuous and a most faithful friend to the 
profession, no doubt. Of course,' you think with me, otherwise 
the notice and partial admissions to his derogation would not 
have been made in your leading article. By the bye, I wonder 
what is his favorite sport — horse and hound, dog and gun, rod 
and line, or men’s feelings. As a surgeon, I suppose he visits 
patients who live in large houses, having butlers’ pantries with 
generous butlers ; servants’ halls and kind servants attached to 
them. 0 yes, of course he does ; for he occasionally sees ve- 
terinary surgeons in them ; yes, clairvoyant, from the dining 
room, or the drawing room, as it may so happen, that he is being 
entertained by the gentleman and his sporting friends, or by the 
lady and her fashionable circle. Happy man ! this life of his is a 
very nice one, with a classical education, and the straining of 
the intellectual faculties by long and deep research into the 
maze of animal organization and function. I should like to 
know this sporting surgeon much; and I hope, as a friend to our 
profession, he will forward, without the least possible reserva- 
tion, his real name and address to your Journal. 1 recollect well 
the painful suspense I endured while the name of that great 
writer on sporting matters, Nimrod, *remained in secret, and my 
vast astonishment, when it was disclosed, to find that he had 
shortly been a near neighbour ; and, what for aught that I can 
tell, this very sporting surgeon may be a neighbour too : 
therefore, as a humble member of the veterinary profession, 
I should feel unfeignedly obliged by his complying with the 
above request. Should he decline to do so, then I must confess 
my opinion of his friendship and kind wishes for the prosperity 
and improvement of our body will be, in my mind, so exceed- 
ingly questionable, that I should consider it a particular favour 
if he would keep his future observations and remarks on the 
“classical education,” “extensive course of education,” the use 
or abuse of the advantages held out by a generous and dis- 
cerning public to my brother members, while he keeps his 
name, to himself. 
I am, dear Sir, 
Your’s truly, 
Rich. Pritchard. 
W. Percivall, Esq. 
VOL. XXIV. C * 
