ON THE VETERINARY EXAMINING COMMITTEE. 277 
Committee, from the numerous examinations he has attended, from 
the veterinary knowledge he has thereby been able to collect, added 
to the observations such a great mind as his has at all times been 
making, and particularly on veterinary science, from the known 
love he has always borne it, together with the advantages he has 
for years enjoyed from his great intimacy with and regard for our 
late Professor—all this, I say, accounts for Sir Astley’s scruples— 
which, after all, do not amount to dissent—concerning the expedi¬ 
ency of the admission of veterinary surgeons into the Committee: 
because his own mind is stored with so many veterinary facts, and 
so much of that knowledge which the veterinary examiner requires, 
it is that Sir Astley, in the liberality of his heart, gives the other 
members of the Committee credit for possessing veterinary know¬ 
ledge tantamount to his own. But is there another Sir Astley in 
the Committee 1 Is there any one among the medical members, 
barring my friend, Mr. B. Cooper, who will affirm that he possesses 
any knowledge whatever of horses'! I say this, not out of any 
disrespect for the other members—to most of whom I am known, 
and all of whom I sincerely esteem—but for the sole purpose of 
shewing how disadvantageous to veterinary science it is that they 
should hold situations which ought to be occupied by veterinary 
surgeons. 
If you tell me, that the medical knowledge these gentlemen so 
eminently possess, is, by application, sufficient for the purposes of 
examination generally, and that as to matters of special anatomy, 
physiology, and pathology, these are provided for by the introduc¬ 
tion into the Committee of the Assistant-Professor and yourself, I 
answer, that, instead of the numbers being six of the former and 
two of the latter, they ought to be reversed; and that neither your¬ 
self, nor your Assistant, ought to be on the Committee at all. For 
teachers to examine and pass their own pupils is indelicate—is de¬ 
cidedly improper. At the College of Surgeons such inconsistency 
is scrupulously avoided : no examiner there, who is a teacher, ever 
thinks of examining the pupils of his own class. It has in times 
past been done at the Veterinary College, because dearth of talent 
in the profession rendered it absolutely necessary : such, however, 
is no longer the case, and, therefore, the impropriety ought to cease. 
VOL. XTII. 0 O 
