£72 
GLASGOW VETERINARY COLLEGE. 
Cambuslang; Rev. Mr. Storry, Carmunnock; R. Walker, Esq., Le- 
thamkill; Mr. Johnson, Letterick; and Mr. Young, junr., Greenlees; 
Professors Knox, Cooke, and Macqueen, Glasgow Veterinary College. 
The following Veterinary Surgeons were also present:—Mr. M’GTh, 
London; Mr. Dunlop, Belfast; Mr. Kidney, Belfast; Mr. MYntoslq 
Dumfries; Mr. Thomas Campbell, Kirkcudbright; Mr. Chivas, Cor- 
bridge; Mr. Thomson, Inverness; Mr. Spreull, Dundee; Mr. Crockatt, 
Dundee; Mr. Lindsay, Alloa; Mr. Robinson, senr., Greenock; Mr. 
Robinson, junr., Greenock; Mr. R. Rutherford, Edinburgh; Mr. 
M’Farlane, Greenock; Mr. Pottie, Paisley; Mr. M’Geoch, Paisley; Mr. 
Houston, Paisley; Mr. J. M’Call, Govan ; Mr. Weir, Airdrie; Mr. Weir, 
Glasgow; Mr. Blackie, Bellshill; Mr. Bryce, Stirling; Mr. Pollock, 
Hamilton; Mr. Jarvie, Carluke; Mr. Brackenridge, Holytown; Mr. 
Gardner, Helensburgh ; Mr. Neil, Dumbarton ; Mr. Prentice, Glasgow ; 
Mr. Mitchell, Cranstonhill; Mr. Pollock, Parkhead; Mr. Mitchell, 
Glasgow; Mr. J. B. Macqueen, Glasgow; Mr. Wm. Anderson, junr., 
Glasgow; Mr. Dickson, Glasgow ; Mr. Currie, Glasgow; Mr. Wyper, 
Glasgow; Mr. Blue, Mearns; Mr. Allan, Clarkston; Mr. Panton, 
Blairgowrie, Mr. Constable, Inchture; Mr. George Hill, Glasgow; Mr. 
Clark, Dalserf; and Mr. Peddie, Cathcart. 
Sheriff Clark, who was introduced by the chairman, said—When I was 
asked to deliver the Introductory Lecture at the Winter Session of this 
admirable Institution, which is now rapidly attaining deserved celebrity, 
it was with no little hesitation that I accepted the honour. My almost 
entire ignorance of veterinary medicine—except in so far as reading may 
have given me some small acquaintance with its theory and history— 
seemed to forbid the hope that I could be of any real service. Yet as I 
am warmly interested in the progress of a profession fraught with so 
much practical utility and promising so much towards the advancement 
of science, I could not refuse to accede to the solicitations of your 
Principal, to make some general observations that might tend in some 
degree to stimulate your labours. Veterinary medicine must have come 
into existence as soon as man began to domesticate the inferior animals; 
and that this took place at a very remote era is amply proved by the 
remains of the horse, the ox, the goat, the dog, &c., being found in 
ancient tumuli , lake-dwellings, and caves, intermingled with the bones of 
, primeval man. It is also established by the fact, that among all the 
members of the Aryan race the names of the domestic animals still bear 
the marks of a common origin at that distant pre-historic period when, 
before their separation into Greeks, Celts, Goths, Sclavs, Hindoos, 
Persians, the common ancestry dwelt together and spoke the same lan¬ 
guage in Northern India. From the Greek writers w r e can see that the 
veterinary art was studied in ancient Egypt. From thence it would 
seem to have passed into Greece, where the great care bestowed on the 
breeds of cattle, and particularly of horses and hunting dogs, and the 
great success with which that care was rewarded, incontestably prove 
that the veterinary profession had at least made great progress as an art. 
From the notices of Greek writers we see that many treatises existed on 
the diseases of domestic animals,—that by Hippocrates, a celebrated 
physician of Cos, was deemed the best. We must regret that most of 
them have been lost; yet any one who reads Xenophon’s work on the 
horse cannot fail to see that he lived in an age when the veterinary art 
had been carefully studied. During the flourishing period of the Roman 
Empire, veterinary medicine made great progress, as might be expected 
among a people eminently practical, whose vast military establishment 
required continual remounts for the cavalry service, and who were un- 
