CORRESPONDENCE. 
277 
carefully keeps from any comments on the important points at 
issue, viz., whether the regulars should have the privilege of 
calling conventions and deciding on the proper means of advancing 
the interests of the profession, or should the irregulars be allowed 
to take the initiative in such matters, together with the proposed 
licensing powers of these associations, and the attendant evils 
which I have fully pointed out. lie asserts that I object to some 
distinguished practitioners (the italics are mine), who signed the 
conventional call at this city. Now, I am well aware, as are 
many others, that there are many non-graduates whose scientific 
attainments and skill as practitioners justly entitle them to a place 
in our ranks, but, as I will soon try to show, Dr. Plageman’s at¬ 
tempt to make this comparatively small body of gentlemen act as 
a leaven for the rest, is singularly unhappy. One distinguished 
practitioner here gravely informs a certain party that there was 
no such thing as a coronal, pedal and navicular bone being con¬ 
tained in a horse’s hoof; there was simply one “solid chunk ” of 
bone. “ Distinguished practitioner ” No. 2 is brought face to 
face with a bad outbreak of glanders and farcy in a drayman’s 
stable, symptons too plainly marked to justify a mistake, and sores 
all over body. He proceeds to treat by smearing animals with 
liniment, and it is left to the common sense of a horse-shoer, 
making no pretensions whatever to professional knowledge, to 
suggest that a few musket balls would be more appropriate in 
their treatment “than greasy washes, which suggestion is in time 
adopted. “ Distinguished practitioner” No. 3 brings a horse to 
be shod after cure of sand-crack ; shoer hooks and draws out 
gutta percha composition with which said crack had been cured ; 
case redounds greatly to the credit of No. 3, of course. “ Dis. 
tinguished practitioner ” No. 4 is called in to find why a certain 
animal is off its feed ; the truth of the matter is bad shoeing and 
very painful corns, which after a hard day’s battering over the 
pavement, makes the animal so sore that lie lies down as soon as 
possible after getting into the stable: Diagnosis—neuralgia of 
jaws, and is blistered therefor. “Distinguished practitioner” No. 
5 has an infallible cure for tetanus: bleeds from the nose, tip of 
tail, and all four coronets—one drop of blood from each place is 
