ANNUAL DINNER. 
157 
■—that stable belongs to a medical man. We see a gentleman 
walk into a dealer’s yard, and every flashy, showy, worthless, or 
doubtful screw is brought out, and, at length, one of them is 
palmed upon the unwary customer :—we observed from the be¬ 
ginning that he was considered as fair game :—he was a medical 
man. There is, we repeat it, an incompatibility of pursuits and 
acquirements; and he, whose youth is spent in the lecture and 
dissecting-rooms, and his manhood in the hospital or the operat¬ 
ing theatre or the bedside of his patients, is not, and cannot be 
a sterling horseman : and so he would candidly confess to us in 
private conversation. He can have no business at our exami¬ 
ners’ board. 
But may he not inquire into the proficiency of the student in 
“ general anatomy and physiology ?” What! have we existed as 
a profession forty-odd years, and are there none among us capa¬ 
ble of undertaking this simple task? We have long submitted 
to this motley committee, because we have a strong and indelible 
feeling of gratitude towards many members of the medical pro¬ 
fession. We owed to them our professional existence—we have 
been indebted to them for many an act of kindness—nay, it was 
an act of kindness in them to become our examiners, when we 
had none among ourselves who were competent to the task. 
But now, that the veterinarian is no longer like the turnspit. 
Who climbs the wheel, but all in vain— 
His own weight brings him down again; 
And still he’s in the self-same place 
Where at his setting out he was ; 
when we have those among us who will scarcely yield in their 
accurate views of " anatomy and physiology” to the best even 
of these examiners, and who have viewed those sciences (which 
our examiners have not), in all their bearings on veterinary 
practice ; why, we say, that it is mockery to use such an argu~ 
ment. We will never be false to the claims of gratitude, but we 
can feel an insult as keenly as other men ; and not feel it the less 
when it does not spring from a wish to wound, but from con¬ 
firmed and unjust disparagement and contempt of us. 
And then, as for the value attached to the diploma by the sig- 
