EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
343 
who believed they had a few specifics, some recipes handed 
down to them, and a very valuable book at home for the cure 
of glanders, and everything else. Such men would act 
without calling themselves veterinary surgeons. What was 
w r anted was that veterinary surgeons should keep the 
title exclusively to themselves ; that agricultural societies 
should not step in and grant useless and illegal certificates, by 
which the public were misled. He agreed with Mr. Ernes as 
to the necessity of registration. They must fight for that 
point, and they should appoint officers to institute proceed¬ 
ings against persons who poached on the grounds of profes¬ 
sional men under false titles. A case recently occurred in 
the north, but w r as now in abeyance, in which a veterinary 
surgeon claimed damages for injury done to his practice by a 
person v 7 ho had been successfully competing with him, and 
who had only the Highland Society’s diploma. There would, 
however, be little chance of success in Scotland, where a judge 
and jury w T ould only laugh at the idea of the Highland 
Society not having the power to grant certificates. The 
case would probably be revived, in order to have the 
legal point established. He believed damages could be re¬ 
covered. 
The Chairman said the highest law officers of the country 
had been consulted, and had given their opinion that no 
penalty attached to the improper assumption of the title of 
veterinary surgeon. 
Mr. Gamgee said he was aware that there was no penalty, 
but legal men in the north were of opinion that there was a 
way of meeting the difficulty, by making out a case of special 
damage. At present they were rather weak in Edinburgh 
against the Agricultural Society, but he believed that by 
vigorous action they could accomplish their object. It was 
by hard work that they got their charter recognised in the 
north ; it cost a great deal of labour and money, and brought 
upon them some amount of ill-will. They were now overcoming 
that feeling, and he believed in the course of three or four 
years every man in Scotland would be brought to the Royal 
College of Veterinary Surgeons. T he students themselves 
were finding it out. Before, then, they went in search of 
new acts, they ought to remember that they had an act 
already by which a great deal might be accomplished. Some 
of the most active supporters of the new Veterinary College 
were on the Highland Society’s board of directors, and no 
single individual could be expected successfully to oppose 
their application to Government. 
The Chairman .—They were not met to consider the question 
