44G 
VETF.RINAllY EDUCATION. 
position; and that a very considerable and satisfactory know¬ 
ledge of medical treatment of cattle, &c., might be and was ac¬ 
quired at Alfort. If the other schools offered somewhat greater 
facility for the study of this branch of the veterinary art, fewer 
horses were probably admitted into their infirmaries, and a less 
satisfactory knowledge was acquired of the management of their 
diseases. 
We will not now inquire what excuse the St. Pancras school 
will offer for its total abandonment of the principle on which it 
was founded, and the systematic confinement of the notice of the 
pupil to one animal alone; for the hour is now at hand when it 
will anxiously, zealously pursue another course—when its system 
of instruction will be worthy of the noble purpose to which it was 
originally devoted, and the whole country will hail the connexion, 
never, we trust, to be dissevered, between the English Agricul¬ 
tural Society and the Royal Veterinary College. 
We turn, for a moment, to the letter from Mr. Vines, inserted 
in page 442 of this Number. We alluded, in the passage to which 
he refers, to that which was matter of universal observation and 
regret—not merely the absence of investigation and demonstration 
with regard to any thing but the horse in the College dissecting- 
room, but the systematic sneer or sarcasm with which the intro¬ 
duction of any thing else was visited. The repeated inculcation 
of the doctrine, that the knowledge of the horse was all that was 
required, and that he who understood the economy of the horse, 
and could treat his diseases, would not be at a loss with regard to 
other animals—it was to this, and the influence of this, that we 
objected. If we are wrong, some of the pupils, in properly attest¬ 
ed communications, will set us right. 
We are happy to hear other sentiments now avowed by Mr. 
Vines, and while he acts on them we wish him success. 
We discharge a painful duty when we insert the trial of Fisher 
V. Matthews. Of the cause of the death of the horse there can¬ 
not be the slightest doubt—not the administration of an over¬ 
dose of croton oil, but of some violent escharotic mixture, which 
had accidentally or carelessly been left in the bottle. Mr. Mat¬ 
thews's profession^il skill is not impeached ; and it is evident that 
