12 
VETERINARY SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 
V.S. (New York).—Member of New York College of 
Veterinary Surgeons in New York City (dated prior to 
March, 1875). 
V.S. (Ontario).—Graduate Ontario Veterinary School. 
V.S. (Montreal).—Graduate Montreal Veterinary School. 
V.S.E.—Highland and Agricultural Society’s Certificate 
holder. 
M.R.C.V.S.—Member of the Royal College of Veterinary 
Surgeons of Great Britain. 
F.R.C.V.S.—Fellow of ditto. 
V.M.—Magister or Medicus Veterinarius of Berlin, or 
other continental school. 
Besides these there are practitioners with doubtful quali¬ 
fications, such as cannot be allowed to be a sufficient 
guarantee for professional education. These are agricultural 
certificate holders, holders of diplomas from ephemeral 
schools, &c. Here we may place undiplomated members 
of veterinary societies. Finally, there are in America im¬ 
postors who adopt a good title without the slightest authority, 
trusting to their own impudence and public ignorance; 
others adopt a useless degree (so called), derived from a 
worthless diploma; others assume mountebank cognomina, 
and exhibit considerable ingenuity in the selection, among 
these the <f Voluntary Edidemo-zoological Missionary” is 
facile princeps, though the “ Homoeopathic, Mesmeric, and 
Psychological Veterinary Surgeon” is worthy of note. Cow 
doctors, farriers, and the like, abound in proportion to the 
deficiency in qualified men. . 
The immediate future demands the formation of a register 
of all practitioners who are duly qualified, and measures 
tending to promote professional unanimity among them. 
Also the adoption of some means for securing a uniform 
standard education of future veterinarians. In taking 1 a 
broad view of our subject we can see that the uncombined 
action of states is unsatisfactory, too often leading to failure 
and seldom producing more than bare success. The question 
must be made a national one, and, taking a right view of 
this and other matters, Billings has been writing to the 
Field, Turf, and Farm letters advocating the formation of a 
National Veterinary School. This would, doubtless, prove 
of inestimable benefit, but liberty would still demand con¬ 
sideration for all bona fide private institutions of the same 
character. So, it seems, a Central United States Veterinary 
Examining Board is a more immediate necessity, and one 
which the Legislature would be more ready to supply. 
