VETERINARY SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 387 
history made by this author were “unjust 5 * and “unfair/’ 
where was Mr. Jennings, the planner of the United States 
Veterinary Medical Association, at the opening meeting of 
which the paper was read ? Again, when the first number 
of the only existing American veterinary periodical appeared, 
were the Pennsylvania graduates so indifferent to their 
status that no one would rise to refute any statements 
which were inaccurate, or did they all, like Mr. Jennings, 
“ not see the first number ? 55 At any rate, we were warranted 
in accepting as facts, statements made thus publicly and un¬ 
questioned, and we are glad to be instrumental in clearing 
up any misunderstanding on this matter. We now come to 
the “bogus diploma” question! on which we are taxed 
with having lapsed into gossip or malice, because we said 
“ Philadelphia has an unenviable notoriety in veterinary 
history in connection with the f bogus degrees/ the fame of 
which, extending to this side of the Atlantic, has rendered 
us suspicious of qualifications, even sometimes more search¬ 
ing than those to which we subject our own graduates.” 
Here we must really protest against Mr. Jennings’s treatment 
of us. He has quoted our remarks incompletely, has 
perverted our sense by inattention to punctuation, and has 
given us the credit of statements of which we are guiltless. 
One thing he seems, however, to have made very evident, 
that a Robert McClure was, in 1860, appointed a professor 
of the Veterinary College of Philadelphia, as a colleague 
of Mr. R. Jennings, and a Robert McClure, M.D., V.S. 
was the man who, in my paper, is mentioned in connection 
with bogus degrees, and as acting as the “ Veterinary 
College of Philadelphia ” in issuing diplomas.' Are these 
one and the same man ? We are pleased to hear that the 
true college had closed its doors ten years before, but we 
now for the first time know this ! Until Mr. Jennings’s letter 
appeared, certainly the McClure episode was that best 
known in connection with the checkered career of veterinary 
science in Philadelphia. Finally, gentlemen, it can be 
scarcely doubted that Mr. Jennings has enlarged our infor¬ 
mation in informing us that the “Veterinary College of 
Philadelphia” was the first institution of the kind chartered 
in America, as we were previously of the opinion that 
Dadd’s School at Boston was the first, though the latter was 
chartered some three years later. 
I am, gentlemen, yours truly. 
To the Editors of the * Veterinarian 
