PROFESSIONAL AFFAIRS. 
647 
Vegetius, ars veterinaria post medicinam secunda est, but we 
should bear in mind a good second is not very much behind 
the first; but a second still may be many lengths behind and 
distanced, and there is no reason whatever that we should 
not run a very close race. That medical science has been, 
or is, standing still, none will attempt to assert, and there¬ 
fore can we the better say, i( Look on this picture, and on 
that \” and note the difference. 
A few years since, it was deemed paramount that a candi¬ 
date for examination should have served an apprenticeship 
of not less than three years to some member of the college, 
in regular practice during the whole of that period, and two 
sessional courses at a veterinary school should be attended; 
or, in lieu of the apprenticeship, four sessional years at one 
of the recognised colleges. And could any one conversant 
with facts quibble at an unecessary length of time ? And 
yet, now-a-days, to compete with onward progress, when 
the education of the representative should be so much the 
more extended, the required term of study has again been 
docked to the fashion of olden time. The human branch of 
medical science has certainly not so acted, but rather found 
it necessary to impose fresh guarantees, and regulate hy pre¬ 
liminary test individual efficiency to enter its ranks. 
A very predisposing cause of ailment, then, in our branch 
of science must be traced to the groundwork of the edifice, 
the superstructure of M.R.C.V.S. being at present raised in 
about a year and a half—not that actually, but two sessional 
periods—and the soundness of the foundation no longer 
aided by apprenticeship, to instruct in practical detail and 
manipulation, which can never otherwise be acquired. But 
worse than all, and here is the greatest evil, no solicitude 
whether the aspirant has been educated in a manner to compre¬ 
hend a study so vast and intricate as that which medicine 
calls for, or to have disciplined his mind to that sense of 
refinement and honour essential to a gentleman and a member 
of our honorable profession. It may be replied, then, how is it 
that practitioners do exist to answer so nearly all the require¬ 
ments which these desiderata would embody? And I think 
it will be found, in nearly every instance, that the education 
of the individual acknowledges advantages in addition to 
those afforded by his college training, many having enjoyed 
long insight through other sources of practice, and some 
having studied also in the human schools of medicine. 
W hat an immense advantage if such attainments were 
compulsory rather than fortuitous. I would not for an 
instant be misinterpreted as insinuating aught against the 
