168 
REFORM IN THE CHARGES 
this, considering the history of early times, and the character of 
the early practitioners, we scarcely wonder: nor, perhaps, 
ought we to wonder or complain that its advance in public esti¬ 
mation has been so slow. The higher branches of the medical 
profession have now, however, been enabled to vindicate their 
just and natural claims. If they have not a legal title to an ade¬ 
quate honorarium for the exertion of their skill, common consent, 
more powerful than any written law, has secured it to them ; and 
common consent has likewise sanctioned their demand to mingle 
with the noblest of the land. 
The inferior branches of the clerical and legal professions have 
long reposed under the protection of the legislature, and of com¬ 
mon opinion. To the clergyman a vested property has been as¬ 
signed, of which neglect of duty can scarcely deprive him. The 
solicitor may demand his fee for every visit, and for the most tri¬ 
fling advice. Their subsistence is grounded on, or connected with, 
the exercise of their intellectual and moral powers; but the ge¬ 
neral practitioner was the tradesman still: neither law nor 
custom would grant him aught beyond what he could demand as 
a retailer of drugs; and both united to trample upon him and 
degrade him. They made him what he was, and then condemned 
and punished him for being what they had made him. 
To us, poor veterinary surgeons, from our later emergence 
from absolute barbarism, and the nature of a portion of our prac¬ 
tice, and the scandalous imperfection of our education, and the 
rooted and too-well-founded prejudices of the community, all 
this more powerfully and more painfully applies; but the deci¬ 
sion in the case of Handley v. Henson, so important to the gene¬ 
ral practitioner , gives us likewise the opportunity of liberating 
ourselves from this thraldom, vand that worst thraldom of all, a 
consciousness of self-degradation. Several respectable practi¬ 
tioners have attempted it again and again. The accounts which 
they have delivered to their employers have borne considerable 
resemblance to that of Mr. Handley, or have been drawn up in a 
more summary, and abetter way; but these spirited individuals 
have been so opposed by the practice of the generality of their 
brethren, and the prejudice and want of principle of some of those 
