REPORT OF ANNUAL MEETING. 
417 
Mr. Brown .—In proposing tlie adoption of the Keport I hope 
I may he allowed to make a few observations to the meeting. 
The President .—Will you move first of all the reception of 
the Keport? It will then be open for discussion. 
Mr. Brown .—Then I beg to move that the Report be 
received. 
Mr. Wilson .—I beg to second the motion. 
The President .—It will not be adopted at present. It will 
only be received as the Keport of the Council. Until it has 
been received you have no right to discuss it. 
The resolution that the Keport be received was then put 
and carried. 
Mr. Brown .—I was about to suggest to the meeting that 
the Council deserve to be congratulated upon the efforts 
which they have been making, not only to educate the 
veterinary surgeon, but also to protect him. It is gratifying 
to observe, although we have not succeeded as yet in ob¬ 
taining those immunities which, as a profession, we have a 
perfect right to expect from the legislature, that those efforts 
will not cease to be made until we have obtained a Protection 
Bill, making it penal to practise the art and science of 
veterinary surgery without a proper license previously 
received. It is not necessary to say anything upon the evils 
which result from the absence of such an Act of Parliament. 
They are patent to every member of the profession; one can 
only wish that they were more patent to the public. If I 
may be allowed to comment upon the grounds that are stated 
for introducing a public Bill, I think some exception might be 
taken to this remark in the third clause of the report:—For 
the same reason a boot and shoemaker might be considered 
competent to medically treat his customers, than which nothing 
can be more ridiculous. ; 1 Where arguments are advanced, one 
is naturally anxious that the}’ should be perfectly sound and 
logical. Experience has shown that there are always a 
sufficient number of men ready to oppose a Bill, for what 
reason it is sometimes difficult to understand ; therefore it is 
incumbent upon us not to advance arguments which they 
can easily upset. Now, unhappily for the reasoning in that 
clause, the majority of veterinary surgeons are in a sense 
boot and shoemakers. The question naturally stands in this 
shape.—If the veterinary surgeon shoes a horse, why should 
the man who shoes a horse not act as a veterinary surgeon ? 
The illustration to which I have taken exception seems to 
me to cut with equal force both ways. That there is a 
necessity for the two being combined, for primary reasons, 
in the present state of our practice, I do not doubt ; and I 
