316 MEETING OF THE VETERINARY PROFESSION. 
It would soon be asked of the practitioner, “By which committee 
have you been examined?” and he would not dare to reply to a 
horseman, or to any man of common sense, “ By the medical com¬ 
mittee alone.” The diploma of the medical committee is, in the 
estimation of every sporting man, and of the public at large, per¬ 
fectly valueless. The commander-in-chief would be the first to 
exact that commissions should not be given to veterinary surgeons 
unless they had been examined and passed by the veterinary com¬ 
mittee. It would no longer be possible for Mr. Coleman, Veteri¬ 
nary Surgeon and Druggist-general to the Cavalry, to say, “ You 
shall not use opium and Barbadoes aloes, because they cost too 
much money.” 
After having suffered so much, and been so much insulted, we 
ought to secede in a body from the Veterinary College. What is 
a veterinary surgeon? Is he better than, is he so gdbd as, a 
farrier? In the country, many an old farrier is preferred to the 
veterinarian. A few days ago I saw a case in which an old farrier 
had presently succeeded, after a young veterinary surgeon had been 
blundering on for a month. Yet we are to settle every thing in 
an amicable way. 
Apothecaries have the absolute management of their profession; 
surgeons have the sole control of theirs; but the veterinary sur¬ 
geon must have nothing to do with his. Have we not paid our 
twenty guineas ? Have we not, in various ways, mainly contri¬ 
buted to the very existence of the College ? and yet we are utterly 
excluded from it. Our blacksmiths would be admitted; but the 
door is closed against us. Have we not as much right as any one 
else ? Every man who is not an outlaw has an undoubted right. 
They now keep us out—they cannot do it for ever. It is a public 
institution, and open to us and to every one. Then, are we to sit 
down, and attempt an amicable adj ustment with them ? I cor¬ 
dially support Mr. Cherry’s motion. Let this committee be forth¬ 
with formed ;—let it be selected from the general body of practi¬ 
tioners ;—let this be known to the public, and there will be little 
custom for the other. 
Mr. Child. —Mr. Goodwin seems to have directed much of 
what he has said to me. I am as much aware as he is, that some¬ 
thing is necessary to be done; I am aware that there are many 
evils which imperiously require reformation; and I should heartily 
join in any rational and feasible method of reforming them. I, 
too, have a College diploma; but I attach no value to it. Whatever 
reputation I may have is not founded on it. Perhaps I shall 
never look at it again; and I sometimes almost despise it, when 
I see it bestowed on so many incompetent persons. I know that 
the College diploma is ridiculed; I have heard it too often, and 
