290 
EXCLUSION OF VETERINARY SURGEONS 
competency of the physician, nor the physician of the acquire¬ 
ments and skill of the surgeon, although they practise on the 
same patient, and agree as to the symptoms of disease, and the 
indications of cure, and the general mode of treatment. Is it 
not, then, somewhat presumptuous in you to sit in j udgment on 
the veterinary surgeon, who practises on diseases with which your 
patients are never affected, who distinguishes the diseases which 
are in common by symptoms very different from those which 
would guide you, and who accomplishes the indications of cure 
by means which your philosophy would never have dreamed of?” 
The writer of this article, about a twelvemonth ago, was 
requested to call on a medical gentleman, who is truly an honour 
to his profession. It so happened that he could not attend for 
several hours. One of his carriage horses had not been well for 
two or three days. The animal was now unwilling to move: 
there was a slight staggering uncertain gait when he did move, and 
the pulse was slow, creeping, and hardly to be felt. The skilful 
surgeon, but unpractised in horses, sufficiently, as he thought, 
recognised a state of debility; and as the veterinarian did not 
come, and it was uncertain when he would, he administered a 
cordial. 
' The doom of the animal was sealed. The disease was pneu¬ 
monia—the apparent weakness was oppression—the creeping 
pulse was congestionand in less than two days the horse was 
dead. 
In November 1824, two of the seivants of a gentleman, ranking 
high in the scientific world, were bitten by a dog, under some 
suspicious circumstances. A veterinarian was called in, who at 
once decided that the dog was rabid, and urged that the domes¬ 
tics should immediately submit to the proper preventive means. 
The gentleman without delay applied to his intimate friend, one 
of the veterinary examining committeey an excellent comparative 
anatomist, the very head of his profession, and a co-fellow with 
him in many a learned society. He looked at the dog for a 
moment, and most strangely declared that it was not half so mad 
as the veterinarian. 
What was to be done ? The lives of two human beings were 
at stake. The gentleman could scarcely doubt the judgment of 
