NORTH OF ENGLAND VETERINARY MEDICAL ASSOCIATION. 119 
why do we not have an educational test before entering our 
veterinary schools ? It is not only necessary if we wish to raise 
the status of the profession, but absolutely essential for the 
protection and requirements of the public. I know it has been 
said by some, that such a proceeding would close the door of 
the profession to many valuable men. I do not,however, believe 
that it would have such an effect. The sons of the members 
of the profession; the young but thinking farmer; or even 
the intelligent groom, who might be anxious to enter our 
ranks, instead of being daunted by such an examination, 
would apply themselves in good earnest to obtain the required 
information, and thus be enabled to pass the ordeal which 
would conduct them into a noble and rising profession. 
Doubtless, a few who are now members of the profession 
would not have been so had such a test been imposed—a 
circumstance which would have added greatly to the respect¬ 
ability of the corporate body as a whole, and as well as to 
their own ease and comfort, and much also to the advantage 
of a confiding public. 
Secondly , a much longer and more extensive curriculum 
of college tuition—not less than three full sessions—with 
the addition of botany to the other classes, is required. 
Thirdly , the necessity of a greater unanimity among the 
corporate body is needed, by which we should, acting in 
earnest and in concert, be enabled to induce the professors at 
our several veterinary schools to acquiesce in such measures 
as are here suggested. I know of no step which is so likely 
to bring about this desirable consummation as the inaugura¬ 
tion of veterinary medical associations in all our large pro¬ 
vincial towns, as we have this day done in Newcastle-upon- 
Tyne, as will be done next week in Leeds, and has long since 
been in Glasgow. 
Amongst the foremost objects of provincial veterinary 
medical associations is unquestionably the investigation of 
epizootic and enzootic diseases, not only with a view to the 
adoption of the best modes of treatment to combat their 
effects, but more particularly to the employment of the 
necessary means for the prevention of their spreading and 
reappearance; or, when this is impossible, the adoption of 
such measures as shall reduce their fatality or deteriorating 
consequences to the minimum point. Surely the most efficient 
way of obtaining such desirable results is to be found in 
freely discussing the general as well as the particular charac¬ 
ters of the maladies themselves by a number of professional 
men engaged in the study of such diseases, and who possess 
the opportunity of doing this in many and widely separated 
districts, where each of these affections may assume a modi- 
