102 
LETTER TO SIR ASTLEY COOPER* 
out and examine, tell me what the disorder was, and how I was 
to treat it, he would, by so doing, enable me to form my opinion 
on the subject. The Doctor smiled, and replied, that I must be 
aware he was not competent to any such duty. “ Then, pray 
Doctor, how comes it, that you, and you alone, are competent to 
examine and confer a diploma on a veterinary pupil, whilst I 
remain ineligible for any such office ?” The Doctor, unprepared 
for this home-thrust, again smiled, and with his wonted humour, 
facetiously returned, “Ay, ay, you have me there!” Express¬ 
ing himself perfectly satisfied with my rejoinder, he quitted the 
subject. 
Messrs. Brodie and Charles Bell we may couple toge¬ 
ther in this account of their veterinary relations. They are, both 
of them, very uncertain in their attendance on the examining 
committee : Brodie hardly ever used to be present; Charles Bell 
has been of late years more regular. The only occasion on which 
they have shewn any interest in veterinary affairs is that on which 
they lent their names to our u exclusion ” from the committee, 
and consequent degradation: I say, lent their names , because, 
knowing, or at least believing, them both to be good men—just 
men—men who would not, wittingly, blast the reputation and 
blight the prospects of a whole profession, unheard and undeserv¬ 
ing, it would be illiberal, and might be wrongful, to accuse them 
of having sacrificed their j udgment in such hateful proceedings. 
Mr. Green is Professor Coleman’s intimate friend. Like his 
two fellow surgical associates just mentioned, he can hardly be 
said to possess another veterinary acquaintance (barring, always, 
the Professor’s faithful assistant, Mr. Sewell); and therefore, like 
them, must be pre-eminently unfitted to sit in council on oui 
qualifications. Nevertheless, he does sit, and does pronounce 
judgment on us—ay, and he does so, too, from the most friendly 
motives! 
Professor Coleman may have consulted his own private 
interest in this act of exclusion; but he certainly did not—could 
not have done so conformably either to his understanding, or ever! 
to his consistency. Has he not told us, year after year, in his 
Introductory Lecture, how improper it was “ to reason from 
analogy,” and how dangerous it was to “ practise ” according tc 
such a fallacious guide? and that human surgeons made the very 
worst practitioners? Yes! most certainly he has: and yet. 
almost in the same breath, he would fain persuade us (as it would! 
seem he has persuaded our medical examiners) that medical mer 
(unfit as they are even to reason on, and still more so to practise I 
our art) are better qualified than ourselves to examine veterinary 
pupils ! This is glorious!—It is, indeed, a triumph for us; because | 
