MU. PERCIVALL AND MU. B. COC^PEU. 
95 
Having myself been educated at an early age as a veterinary 
surgeon, soon after I had obtained my diploma, I entered the army: 
being, however, at the time of the great reduction, placed upon 
half pay, I, a few years afterwards, became a pupil at St. Thomas’ 
Hospital, where I dressed for Mr. Travers, and, finally, obtained a 
new diploma from the Royal College of Surgeons: and subsequently 
to this I passed Apothecaries’ Hall. So, in fact, it most singu¬ 
larly turns out, that you and myself have been both pupils of the 
same hospital; have both become Members of the Royal College 
of Surgeons ; have both served in the same regiment—the Royal 
Artillery—you as assistant surgeon, I as veterinary surgeon; have 
both of us since that period been engaged in the practice of our 
respective professions, you as surgeon, I as veterinary surgeon; both 
written works on our distinctive arts, which are in neither case cast 
aside or deemed unworth}"; and yet, now—after a servitude on my 
part of twenty-eight years in the practice of my profession—you 
are elected on the Board of Veterinary Examiners, while I am 
deemed unfit to hold any such appointment! 
Do not, I pray you, my dear sir, for a moment conceive that I 
envy you this veterinary appointment: there can be nothing in it 
worth your acceptance; and, I can assure you, but little to render 
it worth mine. No ! that is not the motive that stirs my pen in 
this already much mooted question at the present time ; for, being 
myself in the army, and moved about from quarter to quarter, the 
appointment is not one I could on all occasions fulfil. My present 
object is to shew, yet more forcibly, if possible, than has been 
hitherto done, the continued stigma cast upon all well-informed 
and respectable members of the veterinary profession, by the obsti¬ 
nate and undeserved exclusion of them, by the Royal Veterinary 
College, from situations which it is perfectly impossible can be 
adequately filled by gentlemen who are by profession surgeons 
and physicians, and not veterinary surgeons. In times past, there 
might have existed reasons why students in the art of curing 
horses should be examined by gentlemen eminent for curing the 
disorders of men ; but, surely, now that the Veterinary College has 
stood nearly half a century, we must have members among us who 
are competent to this duty; and that being the case, 1 should, for 
