604 MEDICAL EXAMINERS AT VETERINARY BOARDS. 
the profession who has seriously studied the matter, and has 
the real interest of his science at heart, will confess he was 
justified in doing so. 
Asking medical men who know nothing of our profession 
to examine our students degrades and disgraces us, as it is a 
confession that we are unable to do so ourselves. Hence, 
when a Cattle Plague Commission is about to be appointed, 
medical men will represent the fact that they know more of 
veterinary matters than veterinary surgeons, as they have to 
examine graduates in veterinary science ; consequently, 
medical men will form the bulk, if not entirely compose the 
commission—perhaps a veterinary surgeon who is not a cattle 
pathologist will be put in to give the thing a semblance of 
business. Or if an International Veterinary Congress is 
about to be held, on the recommendation of some one who 
entertains the very smallest amount of esteem for veterinary 
authorities, and the profoundest regard for medical men, a 
doctor will be sent to represent us. 
All this is damaging to our reputation ; and we need never 
speak of our efforts to raise the status of the profession so long 
as we tolerate it. In no country but England are medical men 
who know nothing of veterinary science permitted to act as its 
representatives or examine its graduates; and no other pro¬ 
fession dares to act as we do. 
If we are to be consistent, and if distinguished human 
anatomists, physiologists, or histologists, are competent to 
test our graduates in anatomy and physiology, why not have 
distinguished human pathologists to examine them as to 
their knowledge of the maladies of the horse, ox, sheep, and 
pig? They are as competent to do one as the other. 
But we have got beyond that stage in pathology; and he 
would be a bold man who would advise us to recur to it. 
It has been insinuated, as already remarked, that the body 
of veterinary practitioners know next to nothing of anatomy 
and physiology ; this is a serious charge if it is correct. But it is 
not. Fortunately, perhaps, for the credit of the practitioners, 
the system of selecting teachers for the schools does not 
deprive them of their ablest colleagues; and there is reason 
to believe that there would be no difficulty in filling as many 
anatomical and physiological chairs as are likely to be vacant 
or instituted in this country, by men who are not a whit 
inferior to those who so ably act as teachers at present. 
Anatomy has always been ranked in a third-rate position 
in the schools, and has not yet been held in much honour. 
Its inculcation is left to the newly-inducted teacher; and we 
have seen that teachers ready for immediate work can be 
