678 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE OF PROFESSOR SIMONDS 
men of education and skill would cease to think the healing art of 
cattle an object beneath their notice .” Must we not blush that these 
observations, made with so much feeling and force, and containing 
such honest truth, apply in an almost equal degree to the present 
time. These thoughts and opinions were promulgated by one 
who wrote in 1776. What would he now have said , had it been 
possible for the same spirit which dictated the remark to have 
remained uninjured by time until now ? 
Downing’s treatise can only be noticed as possessing merit in 
that part of it where directions are given for the removal of calves 
when presented in an unnatural position. 
At about this period “ Rawlins’s Complete Cow Doctor” was 
published, and in it I find the first mention of the elastic tube or 
probang, invented by Dr. Munro, for the cure of the affection 
called at that time fog- sickness — hoven of the present day. This 
instrument has been much improved within a few years, as I 
shall have an opportunity of explaining to you when this disease 
and the accidental lodgment of large portions of food in the oeso- 
phageal canal, called choaking, comes under our consideration. 
We have now brought down the history of this division of vete- 
rinary science to that period which must ever form the grand 
epoch of its advancement and improvement, namely, the esta- 
blishment of the Royal Veterinary College. 
It is not my intention to go fully into the history of the foun- 
dation of this our Alma Mater. It is sufficient for our present 
purpose to shew that the then degraded state of the veterinary 
art, the ignorance of its practitioners, and the great losses sus- 
tained from time to time by the agriculturist, induced the Agri- 
cultural Society of Odiham, in Hampshire, in the year 1785, to 
turn their attention to the subject, and to take measures to secure 
a more enlightened and better educated body of men to practise 
the veterinary art : with these views they contemplated the send- 
ing two young men to the veterinary school at Lyons, to receive 
instruction in that institution. Resolutions were passed in August 
1789 by that body to carry into effect so grand an object ; and 
were only prevented by the arrival in England of Charles Viall de 
St. Bel : the latter part of his name was adopted from his family 
having long possessed a domain called St. Bel, in the province of 
Lyons, and is the one by which he is generally known as the 
first Professor of this Institution. 
It must not be forgotten, that the original intention of its 
founders and supporters was to make it a school in which the 
Anatomy, Physiology, and Pathology of all domesticated animals 
should be taught. Circumstances, however, from its earliest 
beginning, operated to prevent so laudable and patriotic an object 
