584 MEDICAL MEN AND VETERINARY SURGEONS. 
fession is of no long standing. There has hardly been time for 
its importance, and the legitimate situation and character of its 
members to be rightly appreciated : nor, in fact, have those mea¬ 
sures always been taken which would lead to a just appreciation 
of their value. Those were noble sentiments that were expressed 
by the Professor at the students’ dinner in 1834. He spoke of 
the increasing respectability of the veterinary profession—the 
change that had taken place in their rank in society—the small 
number of those who would contest the ground they might now 
occupy, and the importance of acquiring the information and the 
feelings and habits which would qualify them for a superior walk of 
life.” This was as it should be; but such were not the sentiments 
that had always been expressed, or the conduct that had always 
been pursued ; but, rather, by invidious and unjust comparisons—• 
by a singular error of judgment, it seemed as if it were the aim of 
those to whom the interests of the profession were entrusted, to 
perpetuate the state of debasement and thraldom in which the 
veterinary art remained after that of human medicine, once 
equally or more debased, had burst its bonds, and asserted its 
right to public estimation. 
The remedy of this evil is slow in action ; it may be needful that 
the public mind should long be kept under its influence; but it is 
sure. The attainments, and the justly high bearing of the human 
surgeon, and the evident connexion of his art with the welfare of 
society and the dearest charities of life, have at length won for him 
those golden opinions which he had aright to claim : and it is also 
in the power of every veterinary practitioner, who is skilful in his 
profession, and possesses some degree of general information, 
and has quitted the low associates and the low pursuits that used 
to be the millstone around the neck of so many—it is fully in his 
power to obtain the good-will and the friendship of the surgeon 
in his neighbourhood; and not only to prevent these inter¬ 
ferences with his professional avocations, but his co-operation in 
the pursuit of medical science, and, in more ways than one, their 
mutual benefit. But this must he a work of time. Old prejudices 
are not at once discarded. A few, influenced by avarice, or a kind 
of professional sycophancy, but more from ignorance of our per- 
