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THE STUDENTS’ 
wise, some of the best veterinary surgeons—the Professor and 
the Assistant Professor, by whom the improvement of the pupil 
in veterinary science might be unerringly ascertained. These 
were the advantages and the security afforded to the public : 
and then, as it regarded the student, what a treasure to him 
were the signatures of such men as Hunter, Fordyce, Cline, 
Babington, Green, Brodie, and Mayo, attached to his diploma ! 
A document so attested, would be a sure passport to practice and 
to high estimation. 
We are not disposed now to go over the old ground of debate, 
—the construction of this board of examiners. It is a board 
perfectly sui generis —no other branch of science is degraded by 
one like it. Common sense tells every one else, that the pro¬ 
fessors of an art are the best, the only judges of the proficiency 
of the students of that art; and that it would be the most flagrant 
of insults, an indelible brand of incompetence and dishonour, to 
delegate that examination to others. 
We will not dwell on the notorious fact, that of all men in 
society, physicians and surgeons in a large town, are, by their 
education and their habits, the most ignorant of the horse—his 
structure, so far as useful purpose goes, his points, his manage¬ 
ment, his diseases, and their treatment. We impugn not hereby 
the sterling acquirements, the well-earned reputation of the 
medical portion of the examiners' board. Some of them are 
men whose memory will live until the lamp of science is for ever 
extinguished. But there is an incompatibility of pursuits and 
acquirements ; and such men as Brodie, Green, and Mayo (we 
take them because they alone were present at this meeting—we 
do not invidiously select them from their brethren), cannot by 
possibility be horsemen , and they would expose themselves to no 
little ridicule if they pretended to be so. What is the fact? In 
the course of our professional rounds, we go into a stable worse 
conducted and managed than any of the bad ones by which we 
are annoyed :—that stable is a physician’s or surgeon’s. Me see 
a system of peculation, more atrocious than others which yet 
make our blood boil—a disobedience of order, a contempt of con- 
troul, a series of the most despicable artifices, and a systematic 
disregard of the comfort and a waste of the powers of the horse: 
