OF THE VETERINARIAN. 135 
my communication, which I trust they will find in my having 
been put on my defence throughout the whole affair. 
I am, Gentlemen, 
Your’s, &c. 
John Kent. 
Bristol, March 16, 1829. 
We cheerfully admit Mr. Kent’s reply to our review of his pub. 
lication. We fully acquit him of mal-practice. The information 
with which he has now favoured us, and which his pamphlet did 
not contain, satisfactorily accounts for his refusal to remove the 
horse, for that, it seems, was the request; and relieves him from 
the imputation of gross incivility to Nisbett. His supposed illi¬ 
beral animadversions on the plaintiff’s counsel, are 'partially ex¬ 
plained. But our opinion remains unchanged, that Mr. Kent 
was “unnecessarily, injudiciously, and unjustifiably severe” on 
the witnesses against him. We cannot suppose that three profes¬ 
sional men, and two of them graduated veterinarians, would con¬ 
spire, “ by dint of hard swearing,” to crush a brother practitioner. 
Degraded as we are as a profession—degraded in the public and 
our own estimation, we are not sunk to this abyss of infamy. 
We defend not the whole of their evidence ; some of it is highly 
absurd. Let Mr. Kent attack this evidence with the weapons of 
argument and ridicule (he knows well how to use them both): 
but when he imputes to his antagonists the most dishonourable 
motives, and, actuated by which they must have been fools as 
well as rogues—when he not only insinuates, but broadly asserts, 
that they are perjured, he is “ unnecessarily, injudiciously, and 
unjustifiably severe.” 
We can easily conceive that Mr. Kent must have been provoked 
beyond all human endurance by the fraudulent conduct of Nis¬ 
bett; but that will not excuse his abuse of honourable men. Of 
Mr. Quick we may form some opinion from his letter in the pre¬ 
sent number, evidently springing from the heart, v Mr. Leigh is a 
veterinarian of more than twenty years’ standing, with large prac¬ 
tice, and much esteemed; and old Davis must have had some 
character and reputation at stake. 
