204 
ANNIVERSARY DINNER OF 
Colleges : this made it the more necessary that our pupils should 
be examined by this' medical committee, composed of the most 
eminent teachers in this town—perhaps, I might say, the most 
eminent teachers in Europe. It was never intended, or antici¬ 
pated, that these gentlemen should be veterinarians; that they 
should be veterinary practitioners, or that they should be ac¬ 
quainted with the veterinary art; but it was considered that their 
examination of the pupils in the sciences connected with vete¬ 
rinary practice would be the best possible security for their hav¬ 
ing a supeiior education, and the surest path to elevate them 
above the station of farriers. 
To enable the veterinary surgeons to answer such questions as 
might be put to them, these gentlemen, with a liberality that 
cannot be too highly appreciated, actually opened their theatres 
gratuitously to veterinary pupils; and I believe, gentlemen, that 
most of you, if not all, will be ready to acknowledge the great 
benefits you have derived from those lectures, and which you 
never could have derived from me. It was the lectures of those 
gentlemen that enabled the veterinary surgeons to pass their ex¬ 
amination before the present committee. 
Things went on in this manner, apparently very satisfactorily, 
for a great number of years, it never being considered, I say, 
that the medical committee was to be regarded as acquainted 
with veterinary practice. It was found by veterinary surgeons, in 
the country in particular—and if there are any now here from the 
country I am sure they will bear me out in the assertion—that 
the diplomas signed by those gentlemen gave them almost a 
security, with proper conduct, of speedily obtaining a considerable 
practice, the names of those gentlemen being known to all Eu¬ 
rope. The respectable inhabitants of a country town were ac¬ 
quainted with the medical practitioners in their respective neigh¬ 
bourhoods ; and those practitioners attending every body who 
kept a horse, the signatures attached to the diploma became 
known: and this has operated most beneficially to the veterinary 
surgeon. I have heard many of them state, that they owed their 
introduction to veterinary practice more to the names attached to 
that piece of paper than to any thing else. The names of Cline, 
Sir Astley Cooper, Brodie, Green, Babington, Cooke, are known 
to every body; and if the examinations had been conducted' 
more strictly and more extensively by all the veterinary surgeons;* 
in Europe, it would not have been so beneficial to veterinary 
practitioners as the diplomas signed by these gentlemen. I say,j 
this system went on for a great number of years, not one doubt¬ 
ing that the system was good; that it was beneficial to the vete¬ 
rinary surgeon ; and that the public was satisfied that the vete- 
