THE VETERINARY PROFESSION AND EDUCATION. 
573 
his weight away from the toe with the greatest ease and least 
possible amount of muscular action. Does not the horse in 
nearly every case of laminitis rest upon his heels and his 
frog—if enough of that structure has escaped the drawing 
knife—and does it require a less degree of muscular effort to 
travel about with a three-pound bar-shoe than no shoes at all ? 
Truly, some practical men get strangely muddled when they 
begin to grapple with theory ! 
Those who recommend Mr. Broad’s shoes for ringbone and 
chronic laminitis are, perhaps, not aware that bar-shoes 
have been used for the relief of these affections since the days 
of Blundevil — more than three centuries — and are still 
frequently employed. The special ” shoes are bar-shoes. 
Is it too much to assert, in concluding what I have to say 
in this matter, that the pleas put forward for the employment 
of unwieldy lumps of iron at the extremities of a horse’s 
limbs — be these extremities healthy or diseased—are emi¬ 
nently unsatisfactory ? 
THE VETERINARY PROFESSION AND 
EDUCATION. 
By J. Barker, M.R.C.V.S., Scarboro’. 
The importance of this subject, which was so ably handled 
by Mr. Gerrard, of Ware, Herts, in the last number of our 
professional journal, has induced me to carry on the dis¬ 
cussion, and I hope many more will follow the example, in 
particular those members who so vividly described the state 
of things in 1866, when the Veterinary Medical Act was 
uppermost in our minds, and we naturally concluded that the 
subject, which was of the greatest importance to us all, would 
not be shelved in the manner it has been, and the time of the 
Council taken up by matter of really very little importance to 
the general body of practitioners, as Mr. Gerrard observes, 
“ beginning at the wrong end.” This may not be apparent 
to our teachers, examiners, and a few lucky individuals 
whose practice is unusually select, and consists rather in 
giving advice than in treating disease, which is often left to 
their farriers, running doctors,” or, in some cases, to the 
quacks who abound in every part of Great Britain, and are 
yet patronised by noblemen, magistrates, and others, down 
to the small cotter, who has the example of the more 
