528 THE EDINBURGH VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
London and only 9 per cent, here, that either the examinations 
were less stringent here, or that the pupils were better taught; but 
as it has been inferred that the examinations here were too lenient, 
let it be supposed that that has been the cause of the difference of 
the proportion of the students passed here and at London last year. 
But as the Board of Examiners have been regularly appointed and 
equalized for both schools, and as there has been sufficient time 
to bring the improved system into play ; and as at London the 
proportion rejected this year is 19^ per cent., while the propor- 
tion rejected here is only 15 per cent., it follows that the pupils 
here are in the proportion of \\ per cent, better informed than 
those at London. 
Your’s truly, 
William Dick. 
To the Editors of “ The Veterinarian .” 
A LETTER bearing the signature of James Mercer, M.D., 
F.R.L.S.E., Lecturer on Anatomy, &c. and Member of the Edin- 
burgh Veterinary Examining Board, having appeared in the Mark 
Lane Express and now in your periodical, a few remarks on some por- 
tion of its contents become necessary. My attention had been called 
to it on its publication in the Mark Lane Express ; but as I am by no 
means proud of engaging in a newspaper controversy (partly, per- 
haps, because not being a Lecturer on etceras), I had no particular 
object in taking that means of advertising myself to the public, I 
should not have objected to it had not my colleagues in some parts 
of the transaction thought it desirable that my answer as well as 
their own should appear through the same media as the charges 
brought against us. The Veterinarian, however, having also 
become the vehicle of communication, the veterinary profession 
becomes interested in the affair, and it is but fair that they should 
be set right in the matter. 
The first part of the letter I have left my colleagues to reply to, 
feeling very certain that either of them is quite capable of setting 
the question of veracity at rest, to the satisfaction of the Profession, 
if not to the satisfaction of Doctor Mercer. 
In my report of the examinations at Edinburgh, of this year, I 
stated that Professor Dick protested against chemistry being re- 
quired to be taught to his class. I made a minute of the protest 
at the time it was made, fully believing it to be correct. It is just 
possible I may have misapprehended a single word, namely, taught 
for examined ; and the authority of Mr. Burn Murdoch, in some 
