IRISH CENTRAL VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. G83 
■will not realize large incomes, but how many qualified, efficient 
medical practitioners are happy, struggling on their hundred a-year, 
and keeping a respectable position in society with it ? The cities 
and large towns are well stocked, perhaps in some places inconve¬ 
niently so, but the want is felt most in the horse and cattle breeding 
di stricts, where there is scope for practice, and need for energy and 
ability. 
Until the breaking out of the cattle plague in England the country 
never really felt the want of professional men, but I know how 
uncomfortable large proprietors felt at the time in those districts 
where no aid could be obtained, and had that awful plague visited 
this country the veterinary profession in Ireland would have been 
found so inadequate that their efforts would be almost paralysed 
and useless. 
Gentlemen, I have long considered we had two wants in Ireland, 
and I felt jealous of our brethren in England and Scotland, who 
have had those advantages over us, and the result is, that they stand 
on a firmer ground, and all classes have fuller confidence in them. 
I allude to a veterinary association and a veterinary college for 
Ireland. The former is this evening launched in the name of the 
“ Irish Central Veterinary Medical Association,” and it is the very 
proudest moment in my life to come here to assist in making it 
splash safely into the ocean, and see it sail away on its first voyage 
in success and prosperity. As a body representing the Irish mem¬ 
bers of the profession, we must feel indebted to those gentlemen, 
and especially my friend Mr. Collins, with whom, I believe, the 
idea originated. 
The advantages to be derived from such an association are so 
numerous that it is impossible to say where their benefits may end. 
In our rules four principal ones are named, but the sequels that each 
will produce will be felt, not only through the profession generally, 
but throughout the country at large. 
The first object of this Society is the elevation of the profession 
to that position which it should hold, but it is one which does not 
entirely rest with the association, but the members which compose 
it. As a profession, we deeply need it. I know there are many 
who have left nothing undone to raise a position for themselves and 
their profession, but whether it is due to those who have gone before 
us, or to the present, we must and shall get a link higher in the social 
scale before we can command that respect which, as an educated 
and scientific body of men, we should hold. There is nothing, 
gentlemen, which will tend more to produce such effects than the 
establishment and success of our new institution. 
Our second object is intended to alleviate a disease which, to my 
mind, has long been the existing one at the heart of the profession, 
and the one from which it has suffered most, namely, the produc¬ 
tion of a friendly feeling amongst its members; the old adage of 
“two of a trade never agree” seems to satisfy many, and I have 
known natural dislikes to arise without the slightest cause ; simply 
on this principle we must try and remedy the evil, and as a body of 
