THE VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 
223 
verbatim, into almost every periodical connected with the turf, 
the field, or the plough. If these gentlemen have not been so 
frequent in their attendance of late — we speak advisedly — it is 
because the overwhelming avocations of a metropolitan spring have 
rendered so frequent attendance impossible. At the beginning of 
another session, each will be found again in his place among us, 
and we shall see some or all of them occasionally ere that time. 
Among the after-debates the author of each of the essays ac- 
quitted himself well ; and if one is selected as a sample of the 
rest, it will naturally be the first students’ night. The majority 
of the readers of this periodical well know what is meant by that 
term. Ere a student can obtain a certificate of fellowship from 
the Association, he must have brought in, and well defended 
against all opponents, a thesis on some veterinary subject of his 
own selection. This was one of the most useful points in the 
old society; but the students’ night was always a dangerous, 
and sometimes an unpleasant one. The defender was compelled 
to answer all questions to the best of his power; and too many of 
those questions were occasionally put, not to elicit truth, but 
to annoy and to puzzle the poor fellow who was tied to the stake, 
and some explosion of bad feeling would occasionally take place. 
The essay, too, was not always of a practical nature — it could 
not be expected to be so, coming from a young man — and, on 
a few rare occasions, the theory was somewhat too crude, and the 
piracy too barefaced. 
Our readers will find an account of this debate in the present 
number, and the last page of the preceding one. We trust that 
the essay, and the discussion of it, will — what they already pro- 
mise to be doing — give a tone and a character to every future 
meeting of this kind. Mr. Daws had been many years with 
Mr. Mavor, first as an apprentice, and afterwards as an assistant. 
His connexion with such a gentleman gave him an opportunity 
of seeing a great number of cases, and the most scientific and 
the best treatment of them. The essay of Mr. Daws sufficiently 
shews that these advantages had not been underrated, and had 
been diligently improved. He chose “ Pneumonia” as the subject 
of his theme, and the account which he gives of the varieties, 
