REPORT OF ANNUAL MEETING. 
423 
of flesli-worm or trichinous disease in man, and if it is so preva¬ 
lent in man it must be equally prevalent in the lower animals. 
There are also many points in comparative pathology to be 
known, without which it is impossible to understand many of 
the diseases in the lower animals. I have drawn attention and 
Professor Simonds has drawn attention to it—that it is abso¬ 
lutely essential that botany, geology, and zoology should be 
studied in a course of natural history; until we do that we can¬ 
not expect veterinary surgeons can hold, with credit to them¬ 
selves, the positions which I hope they will very soon hold, as 
inspectors of stock and inspectors of provisions throughout the 
kingdom—positions which I trust will give them large emolu¬ 
ments, and positions which I trust will, in course of time, tend 
to raise them in the opinion of their countrymen. I will not 
now enter at length into these points ; I only wish to impress 
upon your minds that it is expedient, in the first place, that 
we should assert the importance of our profession by our 
education; and, in the next, that we should insist upon the 
importance of our profession by pulling together, and having 
numerous opportunities for discussion. I think what is done 
in the Medical Council should be done here; that at our 
monthly meetings, when important discussions take place, we 
should have reporters present. We should then, in course of 
time, attain to something like a general understanding as to 
what is desirable and what is not. As to the past, veterinary 
colleges have worked in one way, and veterinary surgeons 
have worked individually in another. There has not been 
that union which is strength. There has been no practical 
way of bringing it about; and the only way in which it can 
be brought about is by our combining together under the 
banner of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. Since 
1844 we have made but little progress, but I think we may 
now have a starting-point for something better, and some¬ 
thing more durable. 
Mr. Mayer .—It is gratifying to me, as one who has been pre¬ 
vented from attending many of these annual meetings of late 
years, to find that the ground originally mapped out, upon 
which the foundations of this College were to be founded, is no 
longer, as it were, to be kept fallow; and that the Council have 
taken a step in the proper direction, by seeking to secure to 
the veterinary surgeon those privileges which the founders of 
thisCollege contemplated, and which have been too long allowed 
to remain dormant. I quite agree with many of the remarks 
which have fallen from the previous speakers. It appears to me 
essential, in order to get well-educated men into the profession, 
that they should have those rights and immunities which are 
