80 ON EXAMINATIONS FOR A VETERINARY DIPLOMA. 
the candidates for a veterinary diploma be submitted to one hour’s 
examination ; one quarter of which is devoted to anatomy — the 
active examiners in this department being two members of the 
medical profession. However much I may feel grateful to that 
profession of which a Coleman, a Bell, an Astley Cooper, were 
members, I must assert my conviction, that surgeons, however dis- 
tinguished in the wards of a human hospital, cannot be qualified to 
examine on the descriptive anatomy of the horse, unless the struc- 
ture of this animal has been practically examined by them. A 
human anatomist may, by analogy, examine on the general points 
connected with the structure of the digestive and respiratory organs, 
of the eye or nervous centres, and inquire into the peculiarities of 
the digastric or superior oblique muscles (of the eye) ; but this is 
not the anatomy which is most needed to constitute the useful 
veterinary surgeon. It is the relative position of the tendons, 
ligaments, bloodvessels, and nerves in the extremities ; the struc- 
ture of the foot; the relative position of parts in the perinseum, and 
the anatomy of the generative organs : this is the anatomy with 
which the student should be thoroughly acquainted ; and none can 
test his knowledge of it but those who have examined those parts 
with the scalpel. 
In general anatomy and physiology, I believe I am correct in 
stating that the pupils are never examined. I do not believe, 
with some, that all pathology is founded on physiology alone ; but 
certainly I hold that the nature and treatment of disease cannot be 
scientifically and therefore profitably investigated, unless the nor- 
mal functions of the parts liable to disease be previously studied. 
It is extremely desirable that those whom I address may not 
imagine that I am forming too high a standard for the education of 
the veterinary student. It is not necessary that in an examination 
he should give proof of intimate acquaintance with all the theories 
in physiology, which, from Haller to our day, may have been pro- 
pounded on any particular subject ; but I should deem it indispen- 
sable that a veterinary student had a correct knowledge of the move- 
ments and sounds of the heart, the functions of respiration, diges- 
tion, secretion, absorption, and of the nervous system, because 
such knowledge must inevitably prove serviceable to him in the 
study of pathology. 
To be examiners in physiology none are more fit than members 
of the medical profession ; and such is the uniformity of functions 
in the higher classes of animal beings, that they would not be so 
liable to be deceived from false analogy as in the case of anatomical 
details; and while we should be deriving real advantages from the 
co-operation of medical men as examiners in physiology, an ample 
guarantee would be afforded to prove that we are as anxious as 
ever (if not more so) that the professions of human and veterinary 
