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ACCOUNT OF THE DINNER. 
song, “ Oh, doth not a meeting like this make amends,” and he 
sung it with great taste and expression. 
Professor Dick , of Edinburgh, then rose, and said that he had 
scarcely expected to have been so suddenly called upon to propose 
the toast which he then held in his hand, inasmuch as it was one 
that required no little consideration, from the circumstances in 
which they were placed in relation to the Royal Colleges of Surgeons 
and Physicians. He was sure that his hearers must see the diffi- 
culty in which he was placed when they remembered that both those 
bodies had hitherto stood one step above them ; but there were now 
the Colleges of Physicians, Surgeons, and Veterinary Surgeons, all 
classed together — all distinctions between them having, by their 
present Charter of incorporation, been swept away. Neverthe- 
less, there was still something with regard to the Colleges of Phy- 
sicians and Surgeons which the present meeting could not overlook. 
The students were indebted to them for many acquirements, and 
for having shewn them the way in the road of science. He did not 
say that these gentlemen might not have derived much advantage, 
even in their own particular branch of study, by a diligent study 
of the anatomy and economy of the lower animals ; and high as 
they at present stood, he was inclined to think that they would 
stand still higher when to their various acquirements they added 
this additional branch of knowledge. If he remembered rightly, 
there was once a difficulty in discovering how the human body 
was nourished, and an Italian physician found out the secret in 
opening a dog, wherein he had traced the food passing through 
the thoracic duct. Now, if the gentleman had ever opened a horse, 
he could hardly have failed to have found it out much more easily. 
This was a case in point, shewing the great advantage arising 
from paying attention to veterinary science. Still the meeting was 
highly indebted to the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons for the 
encouragement they had received. 
He was aware that there were those who were disposed to place 
the veterinary profession in a lower grade, and thought their own 
profession stood higher and was more advanced, because they occa- 
sionally got a lord for a patient. Now, he would ask, was it not 
almost the same thing 1 Did it not require as much ability to study 
the anatomy of a donkey as of a lord 1 the physiology of the one, 
