286 
EDINBURGH VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
your time by offering any apology for my inadequacy to discharge 
the duty which now devolves upon me. However weak the ability, 
the will is strong. Fortunately, however, the subject is one 
which requires no lengthened preface, no power of eloquence to 
insure it a heartfelt response. When I name Professor Dick, and 
the Edinburgh Veterinary College, I know it will come home to 
the feelings of every one present, and more especially those of 
my fellow-students, who, like myself, have just closed their cur- 
riculum of study. To attempt a panegyric on the character of that 
gentleman would occupy too much of your time, and display my 
total inability for the task ; I shall, therefore, simply crave your 
attention to a very few words. Professor Dick is the father of 
veterinary science in Scotland. This is undeniable. How has 
he attained this honourable distinction? Did it fall accidentally 
to his lot? or were ease and emolument held out as bribes for his 
ingenuity and talent? I need not pause for a reply. 
We all know that it was heavy up-hill work for many a long 
day. The field was comparatively barren, and the produce un- 
worthy of him who laboured to cultivate it. But this 1 know, 
that there is not one here who does not rejoice, that the once 
barren field is now yielding abundant fruit, and, in some measure, 
rewarding the diligence and industry of the husbandman. 
Professor Dick has attained the eminence which he now so 
justly holds from long-continued and unwearied labour. There 
were difficulties to surmount, and exertions required, which none 
but the individual immediately concerned can adequately con- 
ceive. 
The ignorance and the hatred of interested quacks — the pre- 
judices, long and deep-rooted, I may say, of the entire country — 
were to be overcome. It had hitherto, by general consent, been 
taken for granted that a knowledge of the symptoms and treat- 
ment of the diseases of the domesticated animals was by some 
mysterious process imbibed by the smith, while he was rounding 
a piece of iron to the shape of the horse’s foot, or while nailing 
it to his hoof. These prejudices are in a great measure de- 
stroyed. Professor Dick, however, has done more. He has 
opened an honourable and useful profession to the youth of 
his country ; and the title of veterinary surgeon is not now, as 
it was wont to be, one to which a man of education and a 
gentleman would scorn to aspire. The public are becoming 
aware that the old and universal prescription in every case, 
“ We’ll tak a drap of bluid at ony rate,” will not suit the consti- 
tution of their horses and cattle any more than it would that of 
their own, and are daily getting more alive to the necessity of 
a thorough scientific education for the veterinary practitioner. 
