412 
llEPOitT OF ANNUAL MEETING. 
Veterinary Surgeons, actually practising, shall be exempt from 
serving on all Juries and Inquests whatsoever. 
The time which was necessarily occupied in giving this 
subject mature consideration, and in obtaining legal opinions 
thereon, made it too late to bring the measure forward in 
Parliament as a Private Bill; and therefore, rather than 
postpone proceedings for another year, it was deemed desirable 
by the President to take steps to introduce it as a Public 
Bill; and, in accordance with that determination, notice was 
given in the House of Commons by the Hon. Member for 
Evesham. The grounds for introducing it as a Public Bill 
are as follows : 
Pirstly. The object of this Act is to protect the public from 
a deception practised on it by certain parties assuming the name 
and title of Veterinary Surgeon, to which they have not the 
slightest right or claim. This, by misleading persons in quest 
of Veterinary Medical aid, is calculated at times to cause great 
losses to the owners of live stock. To the Veterinary pro¬ 
fession it is of great consequence, not only in a pecuniary 
point of view, but also as affecting the reputation of the pro¬ 
fession generally. 
Secondly. The name of Veterinary Surgeon is of comparative 
recent date, it having been introduced simultaneously with the 
establishment of the Veterinary College, and was first exclu¬ 
sively assumed by those who had graduated at that establish¬ 
ment ; and the title certainly does not belong to persons w T ho 
have neither devoted time nor money to the acquirement of 
Veterinary science. Moreover, there is no hardship in pre¬ 
venting persons who have not graduated from using the title, for 
the Act would not affect those in actual practice at the time it 
would come into operation. It is simply prospective, and 
its effect would he to cause all future eandiuaces of the Vete¬ 
rinary art to study at one or other of the Veterinary Schools, 
of which there are now three, and the establishment of a 
fourtli is in contemplation. 
Thirdly. Though Veterinary Schools have now been founded 
above sixty years, the number of Veterinary Surgeons is under 
1000, while that of Veterinary empirics is more than three 
times this amount, evidently showing that the present state of 
the Veterinary profession, if not stationary, is certainly not in¬ 
creasing with the population, and that unless something is done 
to check this abnormal state of things. Veterinary Schools will 
be very much at a discount. Veterinary Surgeons are now' 
principally located in large towns, few commencing practice 
in rural districts, on account of the opposition they have 
to encounter from numerous empirics. These persons are 
generally the first to attend the maladies of domestic animals, 
