LETTER TO SIR ASTLEY COOPER. 317 
already, in forms, must have come under your notice. I merely 
feel desirous that such strange discrepancy of opinion as exists 
between the whole body of veterinarians and you and your 
committee on this subject, should stand plainly on record, and 
that what appears to us such unmerited exclusion should be made 
as public as possible; and perfectly convinced, that even the 
medical part of the community will show a majority in our favour 
as often as the question is fully and fairly stated. 
My reasons for addressing you in particular, are—1st, Because 
you are stationed at the head of the Veterinary Examining 
Committee; and, 2dly, because, from what has recently transpired 
at the meetings held by the committee of governors of the college, 
it would appear that you have been mainly instrumental in shut¬ 
ting the door against the admission of veterinary surgeons into 
that committee. 
As all the information we are able to get at, publicly, regarding 
the opinions and transactions of the governors of the college and 
the members of this committee, has been very recently laid before 
us in the pages of The Veterinarian, in a brief, but very in¬ 
teresting account of the annual meeting for the present year, held 
May 28th, and again, by adjournment, on June 14th (vide Nos. 
6 and 7), I shall commence my investigation into the mysterious 
causes of our unmerited exclusion with some extracts from these 
reports. 
At the first of these general meetings, our report says, it had 
been acknowledged by Mr. Coleman, that the committee would be 
more effective, and much advantage would result, if a limited 
number of veterinary surgeons were added to the present examiners. 
It was, therefore, resolved, that application should be made to the* 
present examiners, to ascertain whether they were willing to admit 
veterinarians among them.^^ On this memorable occasion we had 
the good fortune to have present Sir Astley Cooper, Drs. Cook 
and Pearson, and Messrs. Bell, Brodie, and Green. They gave 
it no direct reply; but recommended, that a second and distinct 
committee should be formedy consisting entirely of veterinary sur- 
geonsy with the two professorsy before whom the candidates should 
FIRST appear; andy ij passed by them, should afterwards undergo 
the ordeal of the old committee. 
One would hardly have credited that such a proposition would 
have emanated from a set of men, who not merely stand in the high¬ 
est rank in the medical profession, but who are really men of first- 
rate attainments, and most, if not all of them, of exemplary modesty 
and unassumingness. On the present occasion, however, if they 
have not forfeited their acknowledged claims to the former, they have 
most unequivocally shown the absence of all sense of the latter. 
