UNQUALIFIED PRACTICE. 
585 
or who shall not have served an apprenticeship to a veterinary 
surgeon or farrier, shall regularly attend the college practice at 
least two years before they be admitted to an examination before 
the medical committee.” 
How far the latter part of this resolution has been adopted we 
are not prepared to say : we should hope, fully and strictly. The 
previous recommendation of the examining committee has been 
adopted, and is, we believe, enforced to the very letter. We 
trust that it will continue to be so, or rather that both will be 
guarded from all possible evasion ; and, grateful for this important 
step in veterinary reform, we will try to subdue and to forget a 
portion of that indignation with which we have sometimes regard¬ 
ed the original authors of our degradation, and those who would, 
in other particulars, have continued to degrade us. 
The consequence, however, of the by-gone system will for a 
considerable time remain, to the annoyance and the injury of the 
qualified practitioner; but this excellent regulation, undeviatingly 
enforced, will gradually lessen the annoyance, and, in due time, 
altogether remove it. The difference in the competency of the one 
and two years’ student, and the ill-instructed four months’ man, 
will be clear to every employer; and science and skill will ulti¬ 
mately triumph over ignorance and presumption. For a while, pos¬ 
sibly, many young men, seeing these incompetent but certificated 
four months’ surgeons around them, will think that they have an 
equal right to practice, and an equal chance of success, if they 
start after a similar residence. They would think themselves ag¬ 
grieved if an expense of time and of money ten times greater than 
that which was required from others is demanded from them. 
This, too, will gradually cure itself. When these ephemeral cer¬ 
tificated surgeons no longer issue, but the public is rendered 
aware that the veterinary surgeon must deserve his diploma be¬ 
fore he obtains it, and is taught the difference between the new 
and the old system by the increasing respectability of the man, 
and the success with which he practices, the chance of the pre¬ 
tender will rapidly diminish, and the honest and sterling practi¬ 
tioner will reap the reward of his sacrifice of time and expense. 
Is there nothing to be done in the mean time ? There is no law, 
