136 (QUALIFICATIONS FOR A VETERINARY SURGEON. 
education, capable of reasoning upon every step he takes. Our 
best veterinary authors and practitioners are members of the 
Royal College of Surgeons : among whom I may mention More- 
croft, Coleman, Goodwin Senior, Goodwin Junior, Percivall. 
If then they are bad practitioners, we of course cannot with¬ 
draw the name of the Professor. 
When Mr. Coleman was first elected to take the chair as 
Professor at that College, was it from his veterinary knowledge 
he had that honour conferred upon him; I suspect not; I 
should rather say it was from his ability as a medical man. 
What would he then have thought, had such observations been 
applied to himself, had he been considered ineligible, because 
he was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons ? conse¬ 
quently his knowledge of horses very dubious: he would have 
considered it an insult to his understanding, as medical men in 
the profession do now as applied to them. As a horse-man, if 
by such is meant keeping a good stud, or being able to ride well 
up to hounds, those who have had the honour of knowing the 
Professor longer than myself can best answer for his reputa¬ 
tion ; but I never remember having heard of such a circum¬ 
stance. 
If then medical men make such bad veterinary surgeons, 
it seems to me an absurdity, and at direct variance with the 
Professor’s opinions, that the first medical men in town should 
be chosen veterinary examiners, who never can have attended 
to the subject, and therefore what knowledge they have must 
be perfectly theoretical; yet they do not scruple to ask practical 
questions. I am not a little astonished then, that out of so 
many hundreds of veterinary surgeons who are not medical 
men, half a dozen cannot be found sufficiently competent to 
grant diplomas, without having recourse to gentlemen who must 
on all hands, even by the Professor himself, be considered un¬ 
qualified for the duty. This fact will alone, I think, speak 
volumes. 
Allowing that medical men do not make good veterinary 
surgeons, do all those, or half that are raised up under Mr. 
Coleman’s immediate tuition, prove To be so? We will, exempli 
gratia^ take one who ought to be pre-eminently qualified —one 
who has resided within the walls of the College for years, with 
dissections and practice constantly before him. This requires 
no further comment of mine ; the veterinary profession have 
long been convinced of the contrary—that a person receiving so 
large a salary is perfectly incapable of fulfilling the duties of 
his situation—even of the demonstrations. 
Ut sanus sanam prolem, sic morbosus morbosam gignit.” 
