294 
EXCLUSION OF VETERINARY SURGEONS 
informed to decide on the qualifications of the veterinary pupil ? 
If there are none, then the present board of examiners have not 
done their duty, or, rather, have proved themselves altogether 
incompetent. Have they dignified with diplomas so many, and 
not one good man and true among them all ? This must betray 
carelessness or ignorance without parallel and without excuse. 
If there be veterinary surgeons, an honour to their profession, 
understanding the fundamental principles of physiology and 
pathology, and that which, with all their acquirements, the present 
examiners do not,—the application of these principles to the treat¬ 
ment of the domestic quadruped, — a flagrant act of injustice is done 
to them and to the country if they are deprived of that which 
would be the dearest reward of their labours, the public acknow¬ 
ledgment of their worth, and a voice in the direction of the 
affairs of their profession. 
These gentlemen, then, whose skill in their own department of 
medical practice malice cannot depreciate, and the remembrance 
of what we owe to them, time will never obliterate; do we wish 
to push them from their stools? No ! no! The association of 
their names ennobles our humbler profession. But we will tell 
them, that they are neither consulting their own respectability, nor 
the interests of the veterinary profession or of their country, 
when they appear to cling thus tenaciously and exclusively to 
office, and resolve to exclude us from that situation which we 
alone can competently fill. 
Are there well instructed and duly qualified veterinary surgeons, 
or are there not? If there are, why will you continue to do them 
wrong ? If there are not, then shame on the system which has 
been so long pursued; and fie on their negligence and want of 
penetration who have filled the country with mere pretenders. 
The truth of the matter is, that our education has been so limited 
in its objects, and so much more and indefensibly limited in the 
period devoted to it, that we do not possess and cannot claim 
that estimation to which the importance of our profession would 
entitle us. We are, and we painfully feel it, far, far below the 
human practitioner in general acquirements and in public opinion. 
We are not deemed worthy to associate with the practitioners of 
human medicine; and yet we have sometimes thought, that there 
