CORRESPONDENCE. 
35 i 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
SALES OF VETERINARY DEGREES—PROF. LAW EXPLAINS. 
New York State Veterinary College,* 
Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
July 8, 1897. 
Editors American Veterinary Review : 
Dear Sirs :—When the February issue of the Review 
called upon me to name the veterinary colleges which had sold 
their degrees, I did remain ‘‘ silent ” out of consideration for the * 
senior editor, who was not only cognizant of the vile transac¬ 
tions, but who twenty years previously had made precisely the 
same charges which I have been blamed for making in my ad¬ 
dress. I considered that it would have been nncomplimentary 
and discourteous to the senior editor to rush into the gap in his 
defense and my , own, when he could so easily put the whole 
matter right by quoting his own words of so many years ago. 
But, now that the call is reiterated, permit me to quote the words 
of the editor in the first issue of the American Veterinary 
Review, January, 1877, page 10 : 
“In 1866, the Pennsylvania College of Veterinary Surgeons obtained its charter, and 
issued its first circular with the faculty organized as follows .•— 
Isaiah Michener in the Chair of Theory and Practice, 
R. Jennings, “ “ “ Pathology and Surgery. 
W. R. Birch, “ “ “ Materia Medica and Pharmacy, 
J. M. Corat, “ “ “ Anatomy and physiology, 
and with a corps of Clinical teachers (J. B. Raynor and T. J. Corbyn).” 
“ But, like Massachusetts, this school was doomed to no real existence—like her also, 
it was a school only in name, she had no building, no college proper; I am not sure that 
regular lectures were ever given, though they had use of the rooms of the Agricultural 
Society. But, nevertheless, we meet with many diplomas granted from that school, which, 
like a few headed Boston Veterinary Institute, have been unjustly and illegally granted 
and may be considered worthless.” 
If the Review of to-day or any veterinarian who is too 
young to recall the events of that time, should desire any further 
information, he will find it in the later columns of the same 
journal. As examples may be quoted “ Philadelphia Veterinary 
Diploma Shopp 1877, page 291, and “ CorrespondenceP 1877, 
301* 
It is not the director of the New York State Veterinary Col¬ 
lege alone who is called in question, it is also the American 
Veterinary Review and its senior editor. Nor is the subject 
a mere matter of opinion. The facts are established beyond all 
dispute. 
The unbiased reader of my address must have noticed that 
“ S 7 irviving and honorable ” colleges were carefully excluded 
from tlie charge of selling diplomas. “ Bnt short of tliis^^ (the 
