532 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
Again and again liave we said that we are no friends to 
exclusiveness. Yet do we fear there is too much truth in 
the observations made by Mr. T. Greaves in his commu¬ 
nication on “The State and Prospects of the Veterinary 
Profession/' in the June number of this Journal, in which 
there is much that we sincerely agree with. He says 
(p. 392 et seq.), “ I find that many of them (practitioners) 
object in the most strenuous manner to the notion or 
system of making the knowledge they have acquired 
common property. They will neither record their views in 
the Veterinarian, nor will they place them by a viva voce 
description before our associations. The reason assigned 
for this is that their knowledge will fall into the hands of 
the common farrier, the groom, and the uneducated black¬ 
smith, to employ it to their own advantage. Thus the 
profession is deprived of means which, being derived from 
accumulated knowledge and experience no one can doubt, 
would greatly enrich veterinary science. Press these 
gentlemen, and they will say, ‘No' a thousand times 
over. Whatever knowledge I may have, each will say— 
having acquired much of it by my own application and 
industry—it shall sooner go down to the grave with me 
than it shall be handed over gratuitously to the uneducated 
man, who will try by its use to do all he can, in his own 
uncourteous, bigoted, ignorant manner, to take the very 
bread out of my mouth, and, moreover, who is by law 
permitted to call himself a veterinary surgeon, and thus 
claims to stand upon an equality with myself. Abolish 
this very censurable state of things, and then all the know¬ 
ledge I may possess I will freely make known to my 
veterinary brethren." 
We repeat that we fear there is too much truth in this 
statement; nevertheless, we think the remedy is an easy 
one. First, let the membership of the different veterinary 
societies be restricted to those who are members of the 
body corporate. We prefer this high, and it may be 
somewhat narrow, stand-point, to the broader one of those 
who have graduated at any of the recognised schools, 
because it adds to the status of the profession. But if so 
