10 
VETERINARY SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 
British vetermary qualifications, as seen in America, 
are, we fear, very often imaginary. Individuals abound 
in the States who place M.R.C.V.S.L. after their names 
without the slighest claim to this distinction. How¬ 
ever, a number of British graduates occur in various 
parts of the country. In 1877 there were fifty-nine such 
living in the United States of America and in Canada [Am. 
Vet. Review, October, 1877). The qualification seems to be 
highly appreciated by the public and the profession; hence 
the number of false assumptions of it by unqualified prac¬ 
titioners. We find an applicant for a spurious diploma 
writing to McClure —“ Could you not get a London 
graduate to sign it?” We are well acquainted with many 
American graduates, and from experience can testify to the 
excellence of the American element of the students at the 
Royal Veterinary College. A number of practitioners hold 
the Highland and Agricultural Society’s diploma, and sign 
themselves V.S.E., &c. We hope after the recent happy 
fusion of elements of the profession in this country that 
our supplies to America in future will be of a uniform 
stamp, and will tend to maintain the status of our College. 
We hope, too, that American practitioners holding this 
certificate will avail themselves of the present opportunity 
of enrolling themselves as members of the Royal College 
of Veterinary Surgeons. 
Quacks are fond of assuming British titles, and many of 
them sign themselves V.S.G. or V.S D., as they happen to 
come from Glasgow or Dublin, not, of course, for a moment 
imagining that the public will think they have duly 
studied at colleges in those places. But America is a long 
way off, and we can hardly wonder that even (t Yankee 
shrewdness ” is not proof against imposture in this matter. 
The German contingent is small but select, Mr. F. S. 
Billings being the only fully qualified German graduate. 
He is a Medicus Veterinarius of Berlin, and, we are pleased 
to see, entertains and forcibly expresses the most advanced 
ideas on the subject of elevation of the profession, both into 
the position of a recognised state institution and to a higher 
standard of professional education. We wish every success 
to his efforts to promote professional unity. He seems to 
have made one of the proverbial American flights through 
Great Britain, as well as other parts of Europe, and, 
having settled down in Berlin to his graduation studies, 
proves anything but complimentary to the British schools, 
upon which he deigned a hasty passing glance. 
We must not close this account of the ingredients of the 
