242 REJECTION OF VETERINARY SURGEONS 
Under no other circumstances, we think, would a horse be 
sent to the College by a veterinary surgeon. He would not readi¬ 
ly acknowledge his own inferiority of professional skill and zeal, for 
the improvement of veterinary science would be his only motive. 
The governors will now permit him to do this without the pay¬ 
ment of two guineas. They should have permitted him to do it 
without the payment of a farthing. They, however, were not 
aware of the circumstances of the case. Although governors of 
the College, they were not aware of the actual state of the Col¬ 
lege, or the state of veterinary feeling and science. They thought 
they were performing a wonderful act of liberality, while they were 
only doing an act of half-justice, and that accompanied by in¬ 
dignity and insult. 
But the veterinary surgeon, having obtained the previous con¬ 
sent of the Professor or Assistant-professor, may send, in circum¬ 
stances of difficulty or danger, horses which are not bond fide 
his property, but which have been placed under his medical care. 
Will he ever do this ? Will he acknowledge to his employer that 
he is incompetent to the treatment of a certain case, and recom¬ 
mend that it be placed in more skilful hands ? Will he permit 
his patron to say to him, “ Why, sir, if you acknowledge that 
the present case is beyond your skill, and advise me to place it 
under more competent management, I think I had better confide 
all my stud, and at all times, to these superior men.” Will he 
be fool enough to do this ? He may be disposed, in order to 
satisfy his employer, and to remove from himself a certain degree 
of responsibility, to avail himself of the experience and skill of a 
brother practitioner, whom he meets on equal ground in consulta¬ 
tion, but he will never advise that the case should be taken from 
himself, and entrusted to another as his acknowledged superior i 
in science or practice. s 
No case would, in this way, be brought to the College, ex¬ 
cept a hopeless one,—one stated to the proprietor to be hopeless; ( 
and then sent to a public institution for the sake of bolder and 1 
useful experiment; and such a case should be thankfully reeeiv-; 
ed by the conductors of the College, and that without fee or t 
charge. t 
These concessions, then, which arc made “ with a view to sa- 
