47 
IMPROVEMENTS IN VETERINARY SCIENCE. 
so;—and if we may judge of the opinion of the profession generally, 
by that expressed by very many of our correspondents, we have 
been properly so. 
Let us see a little how the account stands between ourselves 
and the Veterinary College. So early as in the first volume of 
“ The Veterinarian/’ we published a somewhat laboured 
article, detailing what we conceived to be the deficiencies in the 
system of education pursued in what was then the only school 
on the south side of the Tweed. We deprecated the short period 
of study, and sketched a few of the three and five months’ men : 
—the required residence, or attendance, is now extended to twelve 
months at the least. We complained of the wretched state of 
clinical instruction there; fifty patients occasionally disposed of 
in little more than as many minutes :—Mr. Sewell’s round is pro¬ 
longed, and more interesting and valuable; and Mr. Coleman 
oftener spends his two hours in pleasing and instructive conver¬ 
sation with the students. We spoke in no measured terms of 
the neglect of anatomy :—some improvement, although not to its 
just and imperative extent, has taken place, for the assistant de¬ 
monstrator is oftener in the dissecting-room; the horse begins 
occasionally to supersede his wretched substitute the ass ; and, 
although no regular and systematic demonstrations are yet given, 
an efficient anatomical school is established in the immediate 
neighbourhood of the College. We lamented that the funda¬ 
mental principles of chemistry, and their application to veteri¬ 
nary medicine, were never taught:—Mr. Morton now delivers a 
series of instructive lectures on these subjects. We objected to 
the almost total silence on the anatomy and diseases of all do¬ 
mesticated animals except the horse :—Mr. Coleman now conde¬ 
scends occasionally to allude to others ; and Mr. Sewell devotes 
a few lectures to their consideration. 
These are important improvements, and must, of necessity, and 
at no great distance of time, lead to others ; and, first among them, 
to the reparation of that apparent breach of faith with the stu¬ 
dent, who, for more than thirty years, was guaranteed to receive 
all necessary instruction in consideration of the initiatory fee. If, 
in the natural progress of such a profession, additional instruction 
is discovered to be indispensable, the initiatory fee should be 
proportionably increased, and, with it, would increase the respec¬ 
tability and the satisfaction of the class, instead of the surreptitious 
demand of payment after payment, not one iota of which those 
concerned with the institution have yet dared to announce to the 
public. 
Much progress has been made,—as much as the most sanguine 
among us could have expected; and one fact every page of his- 
